MACAUIAY5 
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JOHNSON 


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MACAULAY'S 
LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   JOHNSON 


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MACAULAY/S 
LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  JOHNSON 


EDITED  WITH  NOTES  AND  AN  INTRODUCTION 
BY 

WILLIAM   SCHUYLER,   A.M. 

ASSISTANT   PRINCIPAL   OF   THE   ST.    LOUIS   HIGH   SCHOOL 


THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

LONDON:    MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 

1908 

All  riyht*  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1908, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  September,  1903. 
Reprinted  August,  1905;  January,  September,  1906; 
January,  1907  ;   February,  1908. 


PREFATORY   NOTE 

IT  has  been  my  purpose  to  make  this  edition  of 
Macaulay's  Life  of  Samuel  Johnson  as  interesting  as 
possible  to  the  class  of  pupils  who  will  study  it.  The 
notes  are  unusually  full  of  explanatory  and  illustra- 
tive matter.  It  is  useless  to  expect  secondary  school 
pupils  to  pursue  independent  investigations,  and,  even 
if  the  desire  were  present,  the  necessary  books  are 
generally  lacking.  The  only  book  of  reference  one 
can  count  on  is  Webster's  International  Dictionary, 
and  there  are  no  notes  on  points  where  the  definitions 
of  that  work  are  adequate. 

Next  to  the  study  of  Macaulay,  the  study  of  John- 
son's remarkable  life  and  commanding  position  in  the 
history  of  English  literature  is  of  great  importance. 
For  this  purpose,  in  addition  to  much  matter  in  the 
notes  taken  from  Johnson's  Works  and  Boswell's  Life, 
there  has  been  added  an  appendix  containing  selec- 
tions from  the  more  interesting  parts  of  Macaulay's 
Essay  on  Grower's  Boswell  (1831)  and  Carlyle's  Essay 


vi  PREFATORY  NOTE 

on  Bosicell's  Johnson  (1832),  together  with  an  extract 
from  Leslie  Stephen's  History  of  English  TJiought  in 
the  Eighteenth  Century.  Keferences  are  also  made  in 
the  notes  to  some  excellent  historical  novels,  which 
may  interest  the  pupils  and  bring  them  into  closer 
contact  with  the  men  and  times  referred  to.  For  fur- 
ther historical  references,  Green's  Short  History  of  the 
English  People  (Revised  Edition)  has  been  used,  as  it 
is  generally  accessible  and  is  written  in  a  most  inter- 
esting style. 

The  text  followed  is  that  of  the  Encyclopaedia  Bri- 
tannica,  edition  of  1856.  The  proofs  of  the  Life  in 
this  edition  were  corrected  by  Macaulay  himself.  The 
only  changes  made  are  the  italicizing  of  the  titles  of 
poems,  books,  and  periodicals  (which  is  the  custom  in 
the  later  editions  of  the  Encyclopaedia),  the  placing  of 
a  period  after  "  Mrs,"  and  the  insertion  in  the  dates 
of  commas  between  the  month  and  year. 

My  thanks  are  due  to  Miss  Jennie  M.  A.  Jones  and 
Mr.  Philo  M.  Buck,  teachers  of  English  in  the  St. 
Louis  High  School,  for  many  practical  suggestions 
and  valuable  criticisms  and  for  aid  in  revising  the 
text  and  notes. 

ST.  Louis  HIGH  SCHOOL, 
May,  1903. 


CONTENTS 

PAGK 

PREFATORY  NOTE .         T 

INTRODUCTION  : 

I.     Life  and  Writings  of  Macaulay  .  ix 

II.     Macaulay's  Works     .....       xxxviii 

III.  Johnson's  Principal  Works         ....    xliii 

IV.  Chronological    Table   of   English   History   and 

Literature  in  Johnson's  Time        .         .         .    xlir 
V.     Bibliography:    (1)  Macaulay,  (2)  Johnson  and 

his  Period xly 

VI.     Note  on  Methods  of  Study .....  xlvii 

LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  JOHNSON         ......         1 

NOTES          ..........       69 

APPENDIX  A.  —  A  Comparative  Study  of  Johnson  : 

I.     Selections  from  Macaulay's  Essay  on  Croker's 

Edition  of  BoswelV  s  Life  of  Johnson     .         .     12f> 
II.     Selections  from   Carlyle's  Essay  on  BoswelVs 

Johnson          .......     152 

APPENDIX  B. — Johnson  as  a  Moralist       ....     189 

INDEX  TO  NOTES 193 

vii 


INTRODUCTION 

I.     LIFE  AXD  WRITINGS   OF  MACAULA* 

THOMAS  BABIXGTON  MACAULAY  was  born  at  Roth- 
ley  Temple,  Leicestershire,  on  the  2oth  of  October, 
1800.  On  his  father's  side,  he  came  from  a  long  line  of 
Scotch  Presbyterians,  many  of  them  ministers ;  while 
his  mother  was  of  a  good  Quaker  family.  The  moral 
character  of  his  ancestral  stock  was  thus  of  the  high- 
est and  strictest,  though  by  no  means  of  the  broadest 
and  most  unprejudiced ;  and  this  may  account  for 
many  of  the  striking  qualities  of  his  work,  brilliant 
and  vivacious  as  it  is  in  other  respects. 

Zachary  Macaulay,  his  father,  was  a  stern,  taciturn 
man,  having  little  outward  resemblance  to  his  vivacious 
son,  but  endowed  with  the  same  tireless  capacity  for 
work,  and  the  same  marvellous  memory.  He  had 
made  a  moderate  fortune  in  Jamaica  and  Sierra 
Leone ;  and,  on  his  return  to  London  in  1799,  became 
one  of  the  chief  supporters  of  the  Society  for  the 
Abolition  of  Slavery.  As  the  editor  of  the  abolitionist 
organ,  he  was  closely  associated  with  such  men  as  Henry 

ix 


X  INTROD  UCTION 

Thornton,  Thomas  Babington,  and  William  Wilberf  orce. 
His  wife  was  a  pupil  of  the  sisters  of  Hannah  More ;  and 
that  "  high  priestess  of  the  brotherhood  "  became  very 
intimate  with  the  family,  exercising  a  great  influence 
on  "young  Tom,"  whose  brightness  and  loquacity 
made  him  her  especial  favorite. 

The  Macaulay  family  — three  sons  and  five  daughters 
—  were  brought  up  according  to  the  sternest  Scotch 
traditions,  by  an  unbending  father,  who,  on  Sundays, 
read  his  children  a  long  sermon  in  the  afternoon  and 
another  in  the  evening.  Yet  parents  and  children 
were  bound  together  by  the  closest  ties  of  hearty 
affection  and  devoted  love.  And  the  life  of  this 
family  circle  was  the  eldest  son,  Thomas. 

He  was  an  extraordinarily  precocious  child.  "  From 
the  time  that  he  was  three  years  old,  he  read  incessantly, 
for  the  most  part  lying  on  the  rug  before  the  fire  with 
his  book  on  the  ground  and  a  piece  of  bread  and 
butter  in  his  hand."  As  he  grew  older,  he  read  aloud 
in  the  evening  gatherings  of  the  family  from  the  class- 
ical novels,  standard  histories,  and  even  heavy  articles 
from  the  Edinburgh  and  Quarterly  Revieivs.  When  not 
reading,  he  poured  forth  an  incessant  flood  of  con- 
versation, lively  argument,  brilliant  sallies  of  wit, 
extempore  verse,  and  bad  puns.  It  was  of  him  that 
Sidney  Smith  afterwards  said,  that  "  he  had  lately  had 
several  brilliant  flashes  of  silence."  In  all  this  can  be 


LIFE    AND     WRITINGS    OF    IfACAULAY  XI 

seen  the  sources  of  his  natural  and  original  style. 
The  multitude  of  books  devoured  furnished  him  with 
the  inexhaustible  store  of  facts  and  illustrations  which 
make  his  writing  so  concrete  and  vital ;  continuous 
reading  aloud  trained  his  ear  to  combinations  of  words 
with  easy  flow,  whose  meaning  would  be  most  readily 
grasped ;  and  his  incessant  chatter  perfected  that 
vivacity  which  carries  his  readers  through  the  driest 
facts  of  history  with  the  interest  which  accompanies 
the  adventures  of  the  heroes  of  fiction. 

His  writing  began  almost  as  soon  as  his  talking. 
When  only  eight  years  old  he  wrote  a  Universal 
History,  and  an  argument  to  persuade  the  inhabitants 
of  Travancore  to  embrace  Christianity.  The  effect  of 
Scott's  metrical  romances  on  the  child  was  the  com- 
mencement of  an  imitation  entitled  The  Battle  of  Cheviot. 
This  was  abandoned  in  favor  of  an  epic  in  Virgil's 
manner,  FingcU,  in  XII  Books,  of  which  the  first  two 
books  were  completed,  with  parts  of  the  others.  At 
the  same  time  he  wrote  many  hymns  which  were  pro- 
nounced by  Hannah  More  as  "  quite  extraordinary  for 
such  a  baby."  And  all  these  childish  performances, 
scrupulously  correct  in  spelling,  grammar,  and  punctua- 
tion, were  dashed  off  at  the  highest  rate  of  speed. 

The  boy's  memory  was  equally  astonishing.  Though 
reading  with  the  greatest  rapidity,  seeming  to  take  in 
a  whole  page  at  a  glance,  he  not  only  remembered  the 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

substance,  but,  in  many  cases,  the  very  words.  The 
story  is  told  that,  when  only  eight  years  old,  he  ac* 
coinpanied  his  father  on  an  afternoon  call.  While  tha 
elders  were  talking  he  got  hold  of  a  copy  of  Scott's 
Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,  which  he  had  never  seen  be- 
fore, and  devoured  it  with  his  usual  voracity.  On  his 
return  home  he  sat  down  by  his  mother's  bed  and 
recited  the  poem  to  her  as  long  as  she  would  let 
him.  This  power  of  memory  he  scrupulously  cul- 
tivated ;  and  in  later  years  he  wrote  of  a  journey  to 
Ireland:  "As  I  could  not  read,  I  used  an  excellent 
substitute  for  reading,  —  I  went  through  Paradise  Lost 
in  my  head.  I  could  still  repeat  half  of  it,  and  that 
the  best  half."  One  wonders  when  he  found  time  to 
do  his  thinking. 

Such  an  "  infant  phenomenon "  could  easily  have 
been  spoiled.  And  it  is  to  the  wisdom  and  watchful 
care  of  his  devoted  mother  that  Macaulay  grew  up 
with  a  personal  modesty  as  striking  as  his  brilliancy. 
"  You  will  believe,"  she  writes,  "  that  we  never  appear 
to  regard  anything  he  does  as  anything  more  than  a 
school-boy's  amusement."  And  in  a  letter  written 
him  in  his  thirteenth  year  she  says :  "  I  know  you 
write  with  great  ease  yourself,  and  would  rather  write 
ten  poems  than  prune  one.  All  your  pieces  are  much 
mended  after  a  little  reflection ;  therefore,  take  your 
solitary  walks  and  think  over  each  separate  thing 


LIFE    AND    WRITINGS    OF    MACAULAT          Xlil 

Spare  no  time  or  trouble,  and  render  each  piece  as  per- 
fect as  you  can,  and  then  leave  the  event  without  one 
anxious  thought."  It  was  to  such  wise  direction  that 
Macaulay  owed  his  strict  literary  conscience,  which 
made  him  in  later  years  write  and  rewrite  everything 
he  intended  to  be  of  permanent  value. 

The  first  trial  of  Macaulay's  life  was  at  the  age  of 
twelve,  when  he  was  sent  to  an  excellent  small  school 
near  Cambridge.  The  poor  boy  suffered  terribly  from 
homesickness.  His  letters  to  his  mother  show  this  in 
the  most  pathetic  way.  One  of  them  his  biographer, 
Trevelyan,  would  not  publish,  because  it  was  "too 
cruel."  In  others  he  writes :  "  The  days  are  long, 
and  I  feel  that  I  should  be  happy  were  it  not  that  I 
want  home.  .  .  .  Every  night  when  I  lie  down  I  reflect 
that  another  day  is  cut  off  from  the  tiresome  period 
of  absence.  .  .  .  Everything  brings  home  to  my  recol- 
lection. .  .  .  Everything  I  read,  or  see,  or  hear  brings 
it  to  my  mind.  You  told  me  I  should  be  happy  when 
I  once  came  here,  but  not  an  hour  passes  in  which  I 
do  not  shed  tears  at  thinking  of  home.  Every  hope, 
however  unlikely  to  be  realized,  affords  me  some  small 
consolation." 

The  school  was  an  excellent  one,  and  the  master, 
Mr.  Preston,  a  good  scholar  and  a  thorough  instructor ; 
but  Macaulay  had  never  cared  to  play  with  other  boys, 
and  the  regular  lessons  and  hours  of  study  interfered 


XIV  INTRODUCTION 

with  the  unbridled  reading  which  was  his  delight. 
However,  Mr.  Preston  allowed  his  charge  free  run  of 
a  large  library.  "  He  lends  me  any  books  for  which  I 
ask  him,"  the  boy  wrote  his  mother,  "  so  that  I  am 
nearly  as  well  off  in  this  respect  as  at  home;  except 
for  one  thing  which,  though  I  believe  it  is  useful,  is 
not  very  pleasant.  I  can  only  ask  for  one  book  at  a 
time,  and  cannot  touch  another  till  I  have  read  it 
through."  He  was  certainly  not  restricted  in  his 
choice  of  books,  for  before  he  was  fifteen  he  recom- 
mended his  mother  to  read  Boccaccio  —  at  least  in 
Dryden's  metrical  version.  Every  moment,  outside 
of  his  allotted  tasks,  was  devoted  to  history,  prose 
fiction,  and  poetry ;  but  he  never  appears  to  have  been 
interested  in  any  of  the  simple  scientific  questions  or 
mathematical  and  mechanical  problems  which  occupy 
the  minds  of  so  many  bright  boys. 

In  1818  he  went  to  Trinity  College,  Cambridge. 
The  study  then  most  esteemed  in  that  university  was 
mathematics ;  and  for  this  Macaulay,  after  a  transient 
fancy  for  its  rudiments,  entertained  an  intense  dislike. 
His  marvellous  memory  was  of  little  service  here,  and 
he  hated  above  all  things  prolonged  and  concentrated 
thought,  especially  on  abstract  subjects.  "Oh,  for 
words  to  express  my  abomination  of  that  science!" 
he  wrote  his  mother ;  "  if  a  name  sacred  to  the  useful 
and  embellished  arts  may  be  applied  to  the  perception 


LIFE    AND     WRITINGS    OF    MACAULAT  XV 

and  the  recollection  of  certain  properties  in  numbers 
and  figures !  Oh,  that  I  had  to  learn  astrology,  or 
demonology,  or  School  Divinity !  .  .  .  '  Discipline '  of 
the  mind !  Say  rather  starvation,  confinement,  torture, 
annihilation !  But  it  must  be.  I  feel  myself  becom- 
ing a  personification  of  Algebra,  a  living  trigonomet- 
rical canon,  a  walking  table  of  logarithms.  All  my 
perceptions  of  elegance  and  beauty  gone,  or  at  least 
going.  .  .  .  Farewell,  then,  Homer  and  Sophocles  and 
Cicero ;  .  .  .  my  classics  must  be  Woodhouse,  and  my 
amusements  summing  an  infinite  series.  .  .  .  Fare- 
well ;  and  tell  Selina  and  Jane  to  be  thankful  that  it 
is  not  a  necessary  part  of  female  education  to  get  a 
headache  daily  without  acquiring  one  practical  truth 
or  beautiful  image  in  return.  Again,  and  with  affec- 
tionate love  to  my  father,  farewell  wishes  your  most 
miserable  and  mathematical  son." 

It  would  have  been  well  for  Macaulay  had  he  driven 
himself  to  a  thorough  study  of  the  higher  mathemat- 
ics. This  might  have  corrected  his  desultory  habits 
of  thought  and  his  tendency  to  avoid  deep  questions, 
and  have  added  to  the  admirable  perspicuity  of  his 
style  a  precision  and  exactness  which  it  often  lacks. 
As  it  was,  it  interfered  somewhat  with  his  standing- 
in  the  University,  where  at  that  time  "  a  minimum  of 
honors  in  mathematics  was  an  indispensable  condition 
for  competing  for  the  chancellor's  medals  —  the  test 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

of  classical  proficiency  before  the  institution  of  the 
classical  tripos.  Macaulay  failed  even  to  obtain  the 
lowest  place  among  the  Junior  Optimes,  and  was, 
what  is  called  in  University  parlance  '  gulphed.'  But 
he  won  the  prize  for  Latin  declamation,  he  twice 
gained  the  chancellor's  medals  for  English  verse ; 
and,  by  winning  the  Craven  Scholarship,  he  suffi- 
ciently proved  his  classical  attainments." 1 

In.  the  social  life  of  Cambridge  he  was  very  promi- 
nent, and  became  a  great  favorite.  "  So  long  as  a  door 
was  open,  or  a  light  was  burning  in  any  of  the  courts, 
Macaulay  was  always  in  a  mood  for  conversation 
or  companionship."  He  was  one  of  the  brightest 
talkers  in  the  Union  Debating  Society,  and  as  a  re- 
sult of  the  never  ending  discussions  he  changed  the 
Tory  politics  in  which  he  had  been  brought  up  for 
those  of  the  Whig  party.  This  was  a  great  blow  to 
his  devoted  parents  and  the  wayward  youth  had  to 
answer  their  charge  of  being  a  "  son  of  anarchy  and 
confusion."  Still,  owing  to  his  strong  common  sense, 
or  perhaps  to  his  disinclination  to  follow  out  an  idea 
to  its  logical  conclusion,  he  did  not,  though  it  was  a 
time  of  intense  political  excitement,  align  himself  with 
the  Radicals;  but  "took  his  sides  with  the  old  and 
practical  Whigs,  who  were  well  on  their  guard  against 
'  too  much  zeal,'  but  who  saw  their  way  to  such  re- 
1 J.  Cotter  Morison's  Macaulay. 


LIFE   AND    WRITINGS    OF    MACAULAY         xvii 

forms  as  could  be  realized  in  the  conditions  of  the 
time." 

Macaulay  took  his  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts  in 
1822,  and  about  the  same  time  he  learned  that  his 
father's  business  was  on  the  verge  of  dissolution. 
The  good  Zachary  Macaulay  in  his  devotion  to  the 
abolitionist  cause  had  paid  little  attention  to  his  own 
affairs,  and  his  partner  lacked  ability.  Then  it  was 
that  the  son  showed  the  sterling  qualities  which  char- 
acterised him.  He  received  the  news  "  with  a  '  frolic 
welcome '  of  courage  and  devotion."  "  He  was  firmly 
prepared,"  he  said,  "  to  encounter  the  worst  with  forti- 
tude, and  to  do  his  utmost  to  retrieve  it  by  exertion." 
He  was  as  good  as  his  word.  By  taking  pupils  he 
supported  himself  while  he  was  working  for  a  fellow- 
ship worth  $1500  a  year  for  seven  years ;  and  became, 
as  it  were,  a  second  father  to  his  brothers  and  sisters. 
And  this  he  did  "with  the  sunniest  radiance,  as  if 
not  a  care  rankled  in  his  heart."  His  favorite  sister, 
Hannah,  said,  that  "  those  who  did  not  know  him  then 
never  knew  him  in  his  most  brilliant,  witty,  and  fer- 
tile vein."  And  his  nephew  writes :  "  He  quietly 
took  up  the  burden  which  his  father  was  unable  to 
bear ;  and  before  many  years  had  elapsed  the  fortunes 
of  all  for  whose  welfare  he  considered  himself  re- 
sponsible were  abundantly  secured.  In  the  course  of 
the  efforts  which  he  expended  on  the  accomplishment 


INTRODUCTION 

of  this  result  he  unlearned  the  very  notion  of  framing 
his  method  of  life  with  a  view  to  his  own  pleasure ; 
and  such  was  his  high  and  simple  nature,  that  it  may 
well  be  doubted  whether  it  ever  crossed  his  mind  that 
to  live  wholly  for  others  was  a  sacrifice  at  all." 

Stern  old  Zachary  Macaulay  had  been  unable  to  im- 
bue his  brilliant  son  with  his  own  gloomy  religion. 
He  had  even  driven  him  to  such  a  point  as  to  make 
him  hate  all  theological  speculation,  and  to  deride 
such  questions  as  "  the  necessity  of  human  actions 
and  the  foundation  of  moral  obligation."  But  cer- 
tainly, in  the  realm  of  practical  moral  conduct, 
Thomas  Macaulay,  whether  from  nature  or  from 
education,  left  nothing  to  be  desired. 

The  Fellowship  was  not  gained  till  the  third  and 
last  trial  in  1824;  but  Macaulay  had  already  begun 
to  make  somewhat  of  a  literary  reputation.  He  had 
won  the  Greaves  historical  prize:  On  the  Conduct  and 
Character  of  William  the  Third,  —  the  hero  of  his  His- 
tory. Some  portions  of  it  have  been  published  and 
show  that  his  famous  style  was  quite  natural  and  not 
an  artificial  production.  Compare  the  following  pas- 
sage with  any  of  his  later  essays :  — 

"  Lewis  XIV  was  not  a  great  general.  He  was  not 
a  great  legislator.  But  he  was  in  one  sense  of  the 
word  a  great  king.  He  was  perfect  master  of  all  the 
mysteries  of  the  science  of  royalty  —  of  the  arts  which 


LIFE    AND    WRITINGS    OF    MACAU  LAY          xix 

at  once  extend  power  and  conciliate  popularity,  which 
most  advantageously  display  the  merits  and  most 
dexterously  conceal  the  deficiencies  of  a  sovereign." 

But  what  was  of  more  importance  to  his  future 
career  was  the  contribution  of  a  number  of  poems,  arti- 
cles, and  tales  to  Knight's  Quarterly  Magazine.  Of  the 
poems,  Naseby  and  Ivry  still  live  and  are  as  good  as 
any  of  his  later  verse ;  the  stories,  Fragments  of  a 
Roman  Tale  and  Scenes  from  Athenian  Revels,  give 
evidence  that  he  might  have  become  a  better  historical 
novelist  than  any  one  since  Walter  Scott;  and  one 
paper,  A  Conversation  betiveen  Mr.  Abraham  Coidey 
and  Mr.  John  Milton,  touching  the  Great  Civil  War, 
is  a  "beautiful  piece  of  majestic  English."  It  is  pub- 
lished in  the  first  volume  of  Macaulay's  Miscellanies, 
and  in  refinement  and  nobility  of  diction  is  decidedly 
superior  to  the  more  flashy  and  oratorical  style  dis- 
played in  his  subsequent  works.  It  was  Macaulay's 
own  favorite  of  his  earlier  pieces ;  and  many  critics 
are  of  the  opinion  that  his  political  life  and  parlia- 
mentary speeches  had  an  unfavorable  effect  on  the 
finer  qualities  of  his  style. 

Zachary  Macaulay  was  by  no  means  pleased  with 
his  son's  literary  efforts.  The  character  of  Knight's 
Quarterly  seemed  to  his  stern  morality  frivolous  and 
even  improper,  and  the  son  again  had  to  defend  him- 
self from  the  father's  animadversions.  These  articles, 


XX  INTRODUCTION 

however,  brought  Macaulay  to  the  notice  of  Jeffrey } 
then  editor  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  who  was  looking 
about  for  some  brilliant  young  writer  to  put  new  life 
into  this  periodical.  The  essay  on  Milton  was  the 
result,  and  on  its  publication  in  August,  1825,  the 
author  "  awoke  to  find  himself  famous."  It  was  dis- 
tinctly a  new  and  original  force  in  literature,  and 
not  only  fixed  Macaulay's  position  in  the  world  of 
letters,  but  was  the  indirect  means  of  launching  him 
on  the  political  career  which  later  absorbed  so  much 
of  his  energies.  Jeffrey  wrote  him  :  "  The  more  I 
think,  the  less  I  can  conceive  where  you  picked  up  that 
style."  The  admiration  of  the  editor  was  echoed  by 
the  whole  English-speaking  race,  which  had  found  a 
new  author  after  its  own  heart ;  one  who  was  sure  of 
himself,  who  was  not  bothered  with  dubious  problems 
or  intellectual  abstractions,  who  knew  his  own  mind 
and  could  speak  it  forth  with  absolute  clearness 
so  that  all  who  ran  might  read;  who  wrote  with  a 
"  splendor  of  imagery,"  a  richness  of  comparison 
and  illustration,  and  a  vivacity  that  made  one  certain 
that  he  was  reading  good  literature.  An'd  Macaulay 
was  clever  enough  to  see  the  secret  of  his  popularity 
and  continue  it.  As  he  wrote  to  Macvey  Napier,  a 
later  editor  of  the  Review :  "  Periodical  works  like 
ours,  which  unless  they  strike  at  the  first  reading  are 
not  likely  to  strike  at  all,  whose  whole  life  is  a  month 


LIFE    AND    WRITINGS    OF    MACAULAT         xxi 

or  two,  may,  I  think,  be  allowed  to  be  sometimes  even 
viciously  florid.  Probably,  in  estimating  the  real 
value  of  any  tinsel  which  I  may  put  upon  my  articles, 
you  and  I  should  not  materially  differ.  But  it  is  not 
by  his  own  taste,  but  by  the  taste  of  the  fish,  that  the 
angler  is  determined  in  his  choice  of  bait." 

Milton  was  the  first  of  about  forty  essays  which 
Macaulay  contributed  to  the  Edinburgh  Review  at 
various  times  for  the  next  twenty  years.  These  are 
the  works  which  gave  him  his  widespread  contem- 
porary popularity,  and  of  all  his  writings  are  the 
most  widely  read  to-day.  It  is  said  that  the  libraries 
of  many  of  the  English  settlers  in  Australia  contain, 
beside  the  Bible  and  Shakespeare,  only  Macaulay's 
Essays.  To  many  people  they  are  their  sole  source  of 
historical  knowledge,  and  they  are  undoubtedly  the 
best  introduction  to  historical  study. 

Macaulay  "  did  for  the  historical  essay  what  Haydn 
did  for  the  Sonata,  and  Watt  for  the  steam  engine : 
he  found  it  rudimentary  and  unimportant,  and  left  it 
complete  and  a  thing  of  power.  Before  his  time  there 
was  the  ponderous  history,  —  generally  in  quarto, — 
and  there  was  the  antiquarian  dissertation.  There 
was  also  the  historical  review,  containing  alternate 
pages  of  extract  and  comment  —  generally  rather  dull 
and  gritty.  But  the  historical  essay  as  he  conceived 
it,  and  with  the  prompt  inspiration  of  a  real  discoverer 


xxii  INTRODUCTION 

immediately  put  into  practical  shape,  was  as  good 
as  unknown  before  him.  ...  To  take  a  bright  period 
or  personage  of  history,  to  frame  it  in  a  firm  outline, 
to  conceive  it  at  once  in  article  size,  and  then  to  fill  in 
this  limited  canvas  with  sparkling  anecdote,  telling 
bits  of  color,  and  facts  all  fused  together  by  a  real 
genius  for  narrative,  was  the  scene  painting  which 
Macaulay  applied  to  history.  .  .  .  And  to  this  day  his 
Essays  remain  the  best  of  their  class  not  only  in  Eng- 
land but  in  Europe.  Slight  or  even  trivial  in  the 
field  of  historical  erudition  and  critical  inquiry,  they 
are  masterpieces  if  regarded  in  the  light  of  great 
popular  cartoons  on  subjects  taken  from  modern  his- 
tory. They  are  painted,  indeed,  with  such  freedom, 
vividness,  and  power,  that  they  may  be  said  to  enjoy 
a  sort  of  tacit  monopoly  of  the  periods  and  characters 
to  which  they  refer,  in  the  estimation  of  the  general 
public.  Any  portion  of  English  history  which  Ma- 
caulay has  travelled  over  is  found  to  be  moulded  into 
a  form  which  the  average  Englishman  at  once  enjoys 
and  understands.  He  did,  it  has  been  truly  said,  in  a 
small  way,  and  in  solid  prose,  the  same  thing  for  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  that  Shakespeare 
did  in  a  poetical  way  for  the  fifteenth  century.  .  .  . 
He  succeeded  in  achieving  the  object  which  he  always 
professed  to  aim  at  —  making  history  attractive  and 
interesting  —  to  a  degree  never  attained  before.  This 


LIFE    AND     WRITINGS    OF    MACAU  LAY       xxiii 

is  either  a  merit  or  a  fault,  according  to  the  point  of 
view  from  which  we  regard  it ;  but  from  every  point 
of  view,  it  was  no  common  feat." 1 

Mendelssohn  is  the  best  introduction  to  classical 
music,  but  the  more  one  knows  of  classical  music  the 
less  he  cares  for  Mendelssohn.  And  so  it  is  with 
Macaulay's  Essays  as  compared  with  the  highest  forms 
of  literature.  Notwithstanding  the  undoubted  merits 
of  the  Essays  and  their  permanent  popularity,  it  is 
certain  that  when  one  has  attuned  his  ear  to  the  finest 
nuances  of  the  most  refined  English  prose,  he  tires  of 
the  snap  of  Macaulay's  short  sentences,  and  the  too 
obvious  antithetical  balance  of  his  ringing  periods. 
The  oratorical  devices  for  hammering  home  an  idea, 
which  succeed  when  assisted  by  vocal  melody  and 
graceful  gesture,  become  monotonous  in  cold  type. 
Macaulay's  avowed  aim  was  to  make  his  writing 
"  read  as  if  it  had  been  spoken  off."  But  he  forgot 
that  there  are  delicate  qualities  in  the  finest  writ- 
ing which  are  above  what  is  possible  to  the  most  ac- 
complished anecdotist  and  the  most  successful  orator. 
Then,  too,  one  who  has  accustomed  himself  to  deep 
thought  and  careful  discrimination,  is  liable  to  be 
offended  by  Macaulay's  cocksure  judgments,  insuffi- 
cient generalizations,  picturesque  exaggerations,  and 
unreasonable  prejudices.  "Taken  all  round,  his  in- 
1  J.  Cotter  Morison's  Macaulay,  pp.  68,  69. 


xxiv  INTRODUCTION 

sight  into  men's  bosoms  was  not  deep,  and  was  de- 
cidedly limited.  Complex  and  involved  characters, 
in  which  the  good  and  evil  were  interwoven  in  odd 
and  original  ways,  in  which  vulgar  and  obvious  faults 
or  vices  concealed  deeper  and  rarer  qualities  under- 
neath, were  beyond  his  ken.  In  men  like  Rousseau, 
Byron,  Boswell,  even  Walpole,  he  saw  little  more 
than  all  the  world  could  see  —  those  patent  breaches 
of  conventional  decorum  and  morality  which  the  most 
innocent  young  person  could  join  him  in  condemning. 
But  the  great  civic  and  military  qualities  —  resolute 
courage,  promptitude,  self-command,  and  firmness  of 
purpose — he  could  thoroughly  understand  and  warmly 
admire." l  There  is  no  doubt  that  Macaulay  was  often 
prejudiced  and  gave  his  prejudices  full  vent  in  his 
writings,  but  it  must  also  be  said  that  for  the  most 
part,  like  Samuel  Johnson,  his  prejudices  were  on  the 
right  side,  —  that  of  reasonable  liberty  and  rational 
progress. 

There  is  a  great  difference  between  the  first  thirteen 
essays  and  those  which  appeared  after  his  return  from 
India  in  1838.  The  former  were  often  written  in  great 
haste  in  the  intervals  snatched  from  his  parliamentary 
business,  and  were  never  intended  for  permanent  pub- 
lication. In  fact,  Macaulay  resisted  their  republica- 
tion  as  long  as  he  could,  and  was  only  forced  to  it,  in 
1  J.  Cotter  Morison's  Macaulay. 


LIFE   AND    WRITINGS    OF    MACAULAY         XXV 

1843,  by  the  appearance  of  several  American  editions 
which  had  an  enormous  sale  in  England  as  well  as  in 
the  United  States.  In  the  authorized  editions  he 
made  many  changes,  improved  the  style,  and  on  the 
essays  written  after  1834,  he  bestowed  as  much  care 
in  composition  as  he  put  on  his  History.  He  wrote 
to  Macvey  Napier  about  his  Essay  on  Bacon:  "I 
never  bestowed  so  much  care  on  anything  I  have 
written.  There  is  not  a  sentence  in  the  latter  half  of 
the  article  which  has  not  been  repeatedly  recast.  I 
have  no  expectation  that  the  popularity  of  the  article 
will  bear  any  proportion  to  the  trouble  which  I  have 
expended  on  it.  But  the  trouble  has  been  so  great  a 
pleasure  that  I  have  already  been  greatly  overpaid. 
Pray  look  carefully  to  the  printing." 

It  may  be  interesting  to  have  Macaulay's  own  judg- 
ment on  these  works,  as  given  in  his  letters  to 
Napier  :  "  Very  little,  if  any,  of  the  effect  of  my  most 
popular  articles  is  produced  either  by  minute  research 
into  rare  books,  or  by  allusions  to  mere  topics  of  the 
day.  ...  I  hope  in  a  few  weeks  to  send  you  a  prodi- 
giously long  article  about  Lord  Bacon,  which  I  think 
will  be  popular  with  the  many,  whatever  the  few  who 
know  something  about  the  matter  may  think  of  it.  ... 
[Magazine  articles]  are  not,  I  think,  made  for  duration, 
—  and  few  people  read  an  article  in  a  review  twice. 
A  bold,  dashing  scene-painting  manner  is  that  which 


XXVi  INTRODUCTION 

always  succeeds  best  in  periodical  writing.  ...  I  have 
done  my  best  to  ascertain  what  I  can  and  what  I  can- 
not do.  There  are  extensive  classes  of  subjects  which 
I  think  myself  able  to  treat  as  few  people  can  treat 
them.  After  this,  you  cannot  suspect  me  of  any 
affectation  of  modesty ;  and  you  will  therefore  believe 
that  I  tell  you  what  I  sincerely  think,  when  1  say  that 
I  am  not  successful  in  analyzing  the  effect  of  works  of 
genius.  I  have  written  several  things  on  historical, 
political,  and  moral  questions,  of  which,  on  the  fullest 
reconsideration,  I  am  not  ashamed,  and  by  which  I 
should  be  willing  to  be  estimated ;  but  I  have  never 
written  a  page  of  criticism  on  poetry,  or  the  fine  arts, 
which  I  would  not  burn  if  I  had  the  power.  Hazlitt 
used  to  say  of  himself,  'I  am  nothing  if  not  critical.' 
The  case  with  me  is  directly  the  reverse.  I  have  a 
strong  and  acute  enjoyment  of  works  of  the  imagina- 
tion, but  I  have  never  habituated  myself  to  dissect 
them.  Perhaps  I  enjoy  them  the  more  keenly  for  that 
reason.  Such  books  as  Lessing's  Laocoon,  such  pas- 
sages as  the  criticism  of  Hamlet  in  Wilhelm  Meister  fill 
me  with  wonder  and  despair." 

Whatever  may  be  their  faults,  their  merits  are  such 
that  the  Essays  of  Macaulay  will  probably  be  read 
by  thousands  of  people  as  long  as  an  interest  in 
English  history  and  English  literature  exists. 

In  1826  Macaulay  was  admitted  to  the  bar,  and 


LIFE    AND     WRITINGS    OF    MACAULAY       XXVii 

went  several  times  on  the  northern  circuit.  But  he 
was  not  fond  of  the  practice  of  law.  It  required  too 
much  hard  and  continued  application  to  delicate  and 
difficult  problems  to  suit  his  offhand  methods  of  think- 
ing. So  he  obtained  but  few  clients.  But  during  this 
time  he  was  busy  with  what  was  of  far  more  impor- 
tance to  his  future  career.  His  essays  continued  to 
appear  in  the  Edinburgh  Review,  increasing  the  popu- 
larity gained  by  the  Milton.  Their  strong  Whig  bias 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  Ministry  then  in  power, 
and  in  1828  Lord  Lyndhurst  made  him  a  Commissioner 
of  Bankruptcy.  In  1829  Macaulay  wrote  two  vig- 
orous articles  attacking  Mill's  Essay  on  Government. 
These  so  impressed  the  Marquis  of  Lansdowne  that, 
in  1830,  he  offered  Macaulay,  though  an  entire 
stranger,  a  seat  in  Parliament  for  the  borough  of 
Calne. 

Thus  began  his  Parliamentary  career  which,  with 
two  intervals  of  about  five  years  each,  lasted  nearly 
till  the  close  of  his  life.  He  took  his  seat  at  the 
commencement  of  the  memorable  struggle  for  parlia- 
mentary reform  which  handed  over  the  political  power 
from  the  country  gentry  to  the  great  middle  class. 
In  this  he  took  a  prominent  part  and  contributed 
greatly  to  the  final  victory.  His  very  first  speech  on 
the  Reform  Bill  put  him  in  the  front  rank  of  parliamen- 
tary orators.  The  Speaker  told  him  that  "  in  all  his 


xxviii  INTRODUCTION 

prolonged  experience  he  had  never  seen  the  house  in 
such  a  state  of  excitement."  "  Whenever  he  rose  to 
speak,"  said  Gladstone,  "  it  was  a  summons  like  'a 
trumpet  call  to  rill  the  benches."  "It  may  well  be 
questioned  whether  Macaulay  was  so  well  •endowed  for 
any  career  as  that  of  a  great  orator.  The  rapidity  of 
speech  suited  the  impetuosity  of  his  genius  far  better 
than  the  slow  labor  of  composition.  He  has  the  tru> 
Demosthenic  rush  in  which  argument  becomes  incan  • 
descent  with  passion.  It  is  not  going  too  far  to  say 
that  he  places  the  question  on  loftier  grounds  of  state 
policy  than  any  of  his  colleagues."  His  fourth  speech 
on  the  Eeform  Bill  called  out  in  answer  all  the  best 
orators  of  the  Tory  side,  including  Sir  Robert  Peel 
himself.  Macaulay's  oratorical  power  could  receive 
no  higher  praise. 

For  the  next  four  years  he  lived  under  an  incessant 
strain.  Besides  his  parliamentary  duties  and  official 
work,  he  became  one  of  the  lions  of  London  society 
and  "  a  constant  guest  at  Holland  House  —  the  imperi- 
ous mistress  of  which  [Lady  Holland]  scolded, 
flattered,  and  caressed  him  with  a  patronizing  con- 
descension that  would  not  have  been  to  every  person's 
taste."  He  was  also  intimate  with  the  leading  wits 
of  the  day,  with  whom  he  more  than  held  his  own. 
Still  continuing  to  write  for  the  Edinburgh  Review,  he 
filled  his  engagements  "  in  hastily  snatched  moments  of 


LIFE    AXD     WRITINGS    OF    MACAULAT      xxix 

leisure,  saved  with  a  miserly  thrift  from  public  and  offi- 
cial work,  by  rising  at  five  and  writing  till  breakfast." 

And  in  all  this  he  was  still  hampered  by  his  pecuniary 
affairs,  as  his  family  was  practically  dependent  on  him. 
But  his  ingrained  honesty  never  wavered.  He  voted 
for  the  bill  abolishing  his  commissionership,  although 
his  Cambridge  Fellowship  was  just  expiring,  and  he  was 
earning  only  about  §1000  a  year  by  his  pen.  In  fact, 
at  one  time  he  was  forced  to  sell  the  medals  won  at 
the  University.  However,  he  soon  received  another 
post  on  the  Indian  Board  of  Control,  which  placed  him 
in  comparative  comfort.  But  this  too  was  put  in 
jeopardy  by  his  high  sense  of  honor  and  duty.  The 
slavery  bill  brought  in  by  the  Government,  though 
quite  liberal,  did  not  satisfy  old  Zachary  Macaulay  and 
other  fanatical  abolitionists.  The  son  at  once  told 
his  chiefs  he  could  not  go  against  his  father,  saying : 
"  He  has  devoted  his  whole  life  to  the  question ;  and  I 
cannot  grieve  him  by  giving  way,  when  he  wishes  me 
to  stand  firm."  So  he  sent  in  his  resignation,  and,  as 
an  independent  member,  criticised  the  bill.  But  he 
expected  no  mercy.  "  I  know  that,  if  I  were  Minister," 
he  wrote,  "  I  would  not  allow  such  latitude  to  any  man 
in  office ;  and  so  I  told  Lord  Althorp."  Macaulay's 
noble  independence  was  appreciated.  His  resignation 
was  refused,  and  he  remained  "  as  good  friends  with 
the  Ministers  as  ever." 


XXX  INTRODUCTION 

But  his  pecuniary  embarrassments  still  pressed 
heavily  upon  him.  In  December,  1833,  he  accepted  a 
position  on  the  Supreme  Council  of  India,  which 
involved  his  absence  from  England  for  several  years. 
He  well  knew  that  it  was  dangerous  to  his  political 
career  to  exile  himself  at  the  present  juncture,  but  the 
salary  of  nearly  $50,000  a  year  could  not  be  overlooked 
by  a  man  in  his  position.  His  views  are  given  in  a 
letter  to  Lord  Lansdowne  :  — 

"  I  feel  that  the  sacrifice  which  I  am  about  to  make 
is  great.  But  the  motives  which  urge  me  to  make  it 
axe  quite  irresistible.  Every  day  that  I  live  I  become 
less  and  less  desirous  of  great  wealth.  But  every  day 
makes  me  more  sensible  of  the  importance  of  a  >m- 
petence.  Without  a  competence,  it  is  not  very  easy 
for  a  public  man  to  be  honest :  it  is  almost  impossible 
for  him  to  be  thought  so.  I  am  so  situated  that  I 
can  subsist  only  in  two  ways :  by  being  in  office,  and 
by  my  pen.  Hitherto,  literature  has  been  merely  my 
relaxation  —  the  amusement  of  perhaps  a  month  in 
the  year.  I  have  never  considered  it  as  the  means  of 
support.  I  have  chosen  my  own  topics,  taken  my  own 
time,  and  dictated  my  own  terms.  The  thought  of 
becoming  a  bookseller's  hack  —  of  writing  to  relieve, 
not  the  fulness  of  the  mind,  but  the  emptiness  of  the 
pocket ;  of  spurring  a  jaded  fancy  to  reluctant  exertion ; 
of  filling  sheets  with  trash  merely  that  sheets  may  be 


LIFE    AND     WRITINGS    OF    MACAULAY         xxxi 

filled;  of  bearing  from  publishers  and  editors  what 
Diyden  bore  from  Tonson,  and  what,  to  my  own  knowl- 
edge, Mackintosh  bore  from  Lardner,  is  horrible  to 
ine.  Yet  thus  it  must  be,  if  I  should  quit  office.  Yet 
to  hold  office  merely  for  the  sake  of  emolument 
would  be  more  horrible  still.  The  situation  in  which 
I  have  been  placed  for  some  time  back  would  have 
broken  the  spirit  of  many  men.  An  opportunity  has 
offered  itself .  It  is  in  ray  power  to  make  the  last  days 
of  my  father  comfortable,  to  educate  my  brother,  to 
provide  for  my  sisters,  to  procure  a  competence  for 
myself.  I  may  hope,  by  the  time  I  am  thirty-nine  or 
forty,  to  return  to  England  with  a  fortune  of  thirty 
thousand  pounds.  To  me  that  would  be  affluence.  I 
never  wished  for  more." 

During  his  voyage  to  India,  on  which  he  was  accom- 
panied by  his  sister  Hannah,  he  shut  himself  up  from 
the  rest  of  the  passengers.  Outside  of  his  immediate 
family,  though  a  general  favorite  and  possessing  many 
acquaintances,  he  formed  no  close  connections.  It  is 
to  be  noted  as  a  characteristic  trait  explaining  many 
qualities  of  his  writings  that  he  never  was  in  love. 
Books  always  were  much  more  to  him  than  men.  He 
writes:  "My  power  of  finding  amusement  without 
companions  was  pretty  well  tried  on  my  voyage.  I 
read  insatiably ;  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  Virgil,  Horace, 
Caesar's  Commentaries,  Bacon's  De  Augmentis,  Dante, 


xxxii  INTRODUCTION 

Petrarch,  Ariosto,  Tasso,  Don  Quixote,  Gibbon's  Rome, 
Mill's  India,  all  the  seventy  volumes  of  Voltaire,  Sis- 
mondi's  History  of  France,  and  the  seven  thick  folios 
of  the  Biographia  Britannica."  He  had  agreed  to 
keep  up  his  connection  wth  the  Edinburgh  Redo/-, 
stipulating,  however,  that  his  pay  should  be  in  books. 
While  in  India  he  lived  in  a  very  modest  style,  and 
continued  his  enormous  reading,  though  he  accom- 
plished an  immense  amount  of  other  work.  Besides 
his  official  duties  as  member  of  the  Council,  he  gra- 
tuitously undertook  the  reorganization  of  the  public 
instruction  and  the  drawing  up  of  a  penal  code.  In 
both  these  tasks,  he  accomplished  beneficial  and  last- 
ing results.  Mr.  Justice  Stephen  says :  "  The  Indian 
Penal  Code  is  to  the  English  Criminal  law  what  a 
manufactured  article  ready  for  use  is  to  the  materials 
out  of  which  it  is  made.  It  is  to  the  French  Code 
Penal,  and  I  may  add  the  North  German  Code  of  1871, 
what  a  finished  picture  is  to  a  sketch.  .  .  .  Its  practical 
success  has  been  complete.  The  clearest  proof  of  this 
is,  that  hardly  any  questions  have  arisen  upon  it  which 
have  had  to  be  determined  by  the  Courts,  and  that  few 
and  slight  amendments  have  had  to  be  made  by  the 
Legislature."  In  this  work,  Macaulay's  unshakable 
honesty  brought  down  upon  him  the  opposition  of 
many  influential  Anglo-Indians,  who  had  profited  by 
the  old  unjust  laws;  and  so  bitter  were  the  attacks 


LIFE    AND     WRITINGS    OF    MACAULAY         xxxiii 

that  for  some  time  he  did  not  dare  to  let  his  sister  see 
the  morning  papers.  And  yet,  "he  vigorously  advo- 
cated and  supported  the  freedom  of  the  Press  at  the 
very  moment  when  it  was  attacking  him  with  the  most 
rancorous  invective." 

In  January,  1838,  he  set  sail  for  England  with  the 
competence  he  had  so  much  desired,  to  find  that  his 
father  had  died  while  he  was  on  the  ocean.  His 
mother  had  passed  away  shortly  after  his  great 
speeches  in  1831. 

Soon  after  his  return,  he  made  a  tour  in  Italy,  where 
he  finished  the  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome,  which  he  had 
begun  in  India.  These  were  published  in  1842.  Crit- 
ics have  denied  them  the  merits  of  the  highest  poetry, 
either  in  .thought  or  versification.  But  their  unfad- 
ing popularity  with  several  generations  of  healthy 
and  hearty  schoolboys  shows  that  Macaulay  when  he 
wrote  of  "brave  Horatius,  who  kept  the  bridge  so 
well,"  had  something  vital  to  say  and  said  it  in  a 
vital  manner.  Trevelyan  writes :  "  Eighteen  thou- 
sand of  the  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome  were  sold  in  ten 
years,  forty  thousand  in  twenty  years,  and  by  June. 
1875,  upwards  of  a  hundred  thousand  copies  had 
passed  into  the  hands  of  readers." 

Macaulay  on  his  return  had  intended  to  devote  him- 
self to  literature,  and  to  write  his  History  of  England, 
which  he  had  planned  to  extend  from  the  accession  of 


XXxiv  INTRODUCTION 

James  II.  to  the  death  of  George  IV.  But  the  Whig 
ministry  needed  all  the  support  they  could  get.  He 
was  returned  to  Parliament  as  member  for  Edinburgh 
in  1839,  and  soon  after  was  made  Secretary  at  War. 

In  1841  the  ministry  went  out  of  office,  and  though 
Macaulay  retained  his  seat  for  Edinburgh,  and  attended 
the  sittings  of  Parliament,  he  gave  himself  more  and 
more  to  literature.  In  1844,  with  The  Earl  of  Chatham, 
he  closed  the  great  series  of  essays  for  the  Edinburgh 
Review,  in  order  to  devote  himself  to  the  History, 
which  he  intended  to  make  the  chief  work  of  his  life. 
In  1847  he  lost  his  seat  in  Parliament.  His  narrow- 
minded  Scotch  constituents  were  unable  to  appreciate 
his  lack  of  sectarianism  shown  by  voting  for  the 
"  Maynooth  Grant "  to  support  a  Koman  Catholic 
school  in  Ireland.  Of  this  he  wrote  to  his  sister  Han- 
nah— now  Lady  Trevelyan :  "  I  hope  that  you  will  not  be 
much  vexed,  for  I  am  not  vexed,  but  as  cheerful  as  ever 
I  was  in  my  life.  I  have  been  completely  beaten.  .  .  . 
I  will  make  nojiasty  resolutions ;  but  everything  seems 
to  indicate  that  I  ought  to  take  this  opportunity  of  retir- 
ing from  public  life."  After  careful  consideration,  he 
refused  election  from  another  borough  and  bent  all  his 
energies  to  bringing  out  the  first  part  of  his  History. 

The  first  two  volumes  of  Macanlay's  History  of  Eng- 
land appeared  in  November,  1848,  and  had  an  immedi- 
ate success  unequalled  by  any  serious  work  in  the 


LIFE    AND     WRITINGS    OF   MACAULAY         XXXV 

English  language.  The  first  edition  of  3000  copies 
was  sold  out  in  ten  days.  In  less  than  four  months 
13,000  were  disposed  of.  In  America,  40,000  copies 
were  sold  almost  immediately,  and  the  Harpers  wrote 
Macaulay  that  in  all  about  200,000  copies  would  be 
disposed  of  in  six  months.  The  next  two  volumes 
appeared  in  1855  and  had  a  still  greater  sale.  The 
publishers  were  able  to  pay  him  in  a  few  months 
$100,000  —  "the  greatest  amount  ever  paid  at  one 
time  for  one  edition  of  a  book."  The  fifth  volume 
which  brought  the  History  down  to  the  death  of  Will- 
iam III.  was  published  in  1860,  after  his  death. 

There  is  no  space  here  to  discuss  adequately  the 
merits  and  defects  of  this  monumental  work.  It  is  suf- 
ficient to  say  that  its  enormous  popularity  was  due  to 
Macaulay's  plan  of  writing  history.  And  he  has  given 
us  a  clear  statement  of  that  plan.  It  was  that  history 
should  be  a  true  novel,  "  interesting  the  affections,  and 
presenting  pictures  to  the  imagination.  ...  It  should 
invest  with  the  reality  of  human  flesh  and  blood  beings 
whom  we  are  too  much  inclined  to  consider  as  personi- 
fied qualities  in  an  allegory ;  call  up  our  ancestors  be- 
fore us  with  all  their  peculiarities  of  language,  manners, 
and  garb ;  show  us  over  their  houses,  seat  us  at  their 
tables,  rummage  their  old-fashioned  wardrobes,  explain 
the  uses  of  their  ponderous  furniture."  In  a  letter  to 
Napier  he  wrote :  "  I  have  at  last  begun  my  historical 


XXXvi  INTRODUCTION 

labors.  The  materials  for  an  amusing  narrative  are 
immense.  I  shall  not  be  satisfied  unless  I  produce 
something  which  shall  for  a  few  days  supersede  the 
last  fashionable  novel  on  the  tables  of  young  ladies." 
And  no  one  understood  his  public  better  than  Macaulay. 
His  last  years  were  darkened  by  disease  and  failing 
strength.  The  magnificent  machine,  worked  for  a  full 
half  century  at  its  extreme  capacity,  at  length  broke 
down.  In  1852  he  had  a  severe  attack  of  heart  disease 
followed  by  asthma  and  fainting  spells  from  which  he 
never  recovered.  Yet,  in  spite  of  suffering  and  weak- 
ness, he  still  struggled  on  with  his  work.  In  the  same 
year  Edinburgh  repented  of  its  former  treatment  of 
him,  and  unasked  returned  him  to  Parliament.  But 
though  he  managed  to  attend  some  of  the  sittings  of 
Parliament,  —  when  his  presence  was  needed,  —  and 
made  one  or  two  speeches,  the  effort  was  too  much  for 
him,  and  he  bent  his  failing  powers  to  the  furtherance 
of  his  History.  "  I  should  be  glad  to  finish  William 
before  I  go,"  he  wrote.  "  But  this  is  like  the  old  ex- 
cuses that  were  made  to  Charon."  Still  he  found  time 
to  write  five  biographies  which  he  had  agreed  to  do  for 
the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  :  Atterbwy  (1853),  Bim- 
yan  (1854),  Goldsmith  and  Johnson  (1856),  and  Will- 
iam Pitt  (1859).  These  are  undoubtedly  his  very  best 
works,  having  all  the  merits  and  but  few  of  the  faults 
of  his  early  essays.  The  biography  of  Pitt,  the  last 


LIFE    AND    WRITINGS    OF   MACAULAT        xxxvii 

work  published  in  his  lifetime,  "  is,  perhaps,  the  most 
perfect  thing  he  has  left.  Nearly  all  the  early  faults 
of  his  rhetorical  manner  have  disappeared;  there  is 
no  eloquence,  no  declamation,  but  a  lofty  moral  ini- 
pressiveness  which  is  very  touching  and  noble."  The 
Life  of  Johnson,  though  marred  by  some  of  Macaulay's 
characteristic  prejudices  and  exaggerations,  is  only 
second  to  the  Pitt. 

The  shadows  of  approaching  death  were  partly 
illumined  by  the  honors  which  came  too  late  for 
their  full  enjoyment.  He  was  elected  Lord  Rector 
of  Glasgow  University,  made  a  fellow  of  the  Royal 
Society,  elected  a  foreign  member  of  the  Institution 
of  France,  and  of  the  academies  of  Utrecht,  Munich, 
and  Turin.  He  was  made  a  Knight  of  the  Prussian 
Order  of  Merit,  Oxford  gave  him  the  honorary  degree 
of  Doctor  of  Laws,  and,  in  1857,  the  Queen  made  him 
a  lord,  with  the  title  of  Baron  Macaulay  of  Rothley. 
He  was  the  first  literary  man  to  receive  the  last-named 
honor  in  recognition  of  his  literary  work.  But  the 
year  1859  found  his  health  failing  very  rapidly  —  this 
being  hastened  by  his  melancholy  anticipations  of  his 
sister  Hannah's  impending  departure  for  India  with 
her  husband.  Yet  he  still  kept  up  his  cheerfulness, 
and,  on  October  25,  1859,  he  wrote :  "  My  birthday 
—  I  am  fifty-nine.  Well,  I  have  had  a  happy  life.  I 
do  not  know  that  any  one  whom  I  have  seen  close  has 


xxxviii  INTRODUCTION 

had  a  happier.  Some  things  I  regret;  but  who  is 
better  off  ?  "  He  died  suddenly  and  peacefully  at  his 
sister's  house,  the  evening  of  the  28th  of  December, 
1859.  He  is  buried  in  the  Poets'  Corner  in  Westmin- 
ster Abbey. 


II.     MACAULAY'S  WORKS 
(1)  POETRY 

Lines  to  the  Memory  of  William  Pitt,  1813. 

Pompeii  :  Prize  poem  winning  the  Chancellor's  medal,  Cam- 
bridge, 1819. 

A  Radical  War  Song,  1820. 

Evening:  Prize  poem  winning  the  Chancellor's  medal,  Cam- 
bridge, 1821. 

Ivry,  1824. 

The  Battle  of  Moncontour,  1824. 

The  Battle  of  Naseby,  1824. 

The  Cavalier's  March  to  London,  1824. 

(The  last  two  are  known  as  Songs  of  the  Civil  War.) 

Sermon  in  a  Churchyard,  1825. 

Translation  from  A.  V.  Arnault,  1826. 

Dies  Irse,  1826. 

The  Marriage  of  Tirzah  and  Ahirad,  1827. 

The  Country  Clergyman's  Trip  to  Cambridge,  1827. 

Song  :  "Oh,  stay,  Madonna,  stay  !"  1827. 

The  Deliverance  of  Vienna  (translated  from  Filicaja),  1828 


MACAULAY'S    WORKS  XXXIX 

The  Armada,  1832. 

The  Last  Buccaneer,  1839. 

Horatius. 

The  Battle  of  Lake  Regillus. 

Virginia. 

The  Prophecy  of  Capys. 

(The  last  four  are  known  as  The  Lays  of  Ancient  Home. 
They  were  published  in  1842.) 
Epitaph  on  a  Jacobite,  1845. 
Lines  Written  on  the  Night  of  the  Thirtieth  of  July,  1847. 

(At  the  close  of  his  unsuccessful  contest  for  Edinburgh.) 
Valentine  :  To  the  Hon.  Mary  C.  Stanhope,  1851. 
Paraphrase  of  a  Passage  in  the  Chronicle  of  the  Monk  of  St. 
Gall,  1856. 


(2)  PROSE  PAPERS  PUBLISHED   IN  KNIGHT'S 
"QUARTERLY   MAGAZINE" 

Fragments  of  a  Roman  Tale,  June,  1823. 

On  the  Royal  Society  of  Literature,  June,  1823. 

Slavery  in  the  West  Indies,  June,  1823. 

Scenes  from  the  Athenian  Revels,  January,  1824. 

Criticisms  on  the   Principal  Italian   Writers:    No.  1,  Dante, 

January,  1824. 
Criticisms  on  the  Principal  Italian  Writers :  No.  2,  Petrarch, 

April,  1824. 
Some  Account  of  the  Great  Lawsuit  between  the  Parishes  of  St. 

Denis  and  St.  George  in  the  Water,  April,  1824. 


xl  INTRODUCTION 

A  Conversation  between  Mr.  Abraham  Cowley  and  Mr.  John 
Milton  touching  the  Great  Civil  War,  August,  1824. 

On  the  Athenian  Orators,  August,  1824. 

A  Prophetic  Account  of  a  Grand  National  Epic,  to  be  entitled 
"The  Wellingtoniad,"  and  to  be  published  in  2824, 
November,  1824. 

On  Mitford's  History  of  Greece,  November,  1824. 


(3)  ESSAYS    PUBLISHED    IN   THE    "EDINBURGH 
REVIEW  " 

Milton,  August,  1825. 

The  London  University,  January,  1826. 

The  Social  and  Industrial  Capacities  of  Negroes,  March,  1827. 

Machiavelli,  March,  1827. 

The  Present  Administration,  June,  1827. 

John  Dryden,  January,  1828. 

History,  May,  1828. 

Hallam's  Constitutional  History,  September,  1828. 

Mill's  Essay  on  Government,  March,  1829. 

The  Westminster  Reviewer's  Defence  of  Mill,  June.  1829. 

The  Utilitarian  Theory  of  Government,  October,  1829. 

Southey's  Colloquies  on  Society,  January,  1830. 

Mr.  Robert  Montgomery's  Poems,  April,  1830. 

Sadler's  Law  of  Population,  July,  1830. 

Southey's  Edition  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  December,  1830. 

Civil  Disabilities  of  the  Jews,  January,  1831. 

Sadler's  Refutation  Refuted,  January,  1881. 

Moore's  Life  of  Lord  Byron,  June,  1831. 


MACAULAY'S    WORKS  xli 

Croker's  Edition  of  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson,  September,  1831. 

Lord  Nugent's  Memorials  of  Hampden,  December,  1831. 

Burleigh  and  His  Times,  April,  1832. 

Mirabeau,  July,  1832. 

Lord  Mahon's  War  of  the  Succession  in  Spain,  January,  1833. 

Horace  Walpole,  October,  1833. 

William  Pitt,  Earl  of  Chatham,  January,  1834. 

Sir  James  Mackintosh,  July,  1835. 

Lord  Bacon,  July,  1837. 

Sir  William  Temple,  October,  1838. 

Gladstone  on  Church  and  State,  April,  1839. 

Lord  Clive,  January,  1840. 

Von  Kanke's  History  of  the  Popes,  October,  1840. 

Leigh  Hunt's  Comic  Dramatists  of  the  Restoration,  January, 

1841. 

Lord  Holland,  July,  1841. 
Warren  Hastings,  October,  1841. 
Frederick  the  Great,  April,  1842. 

Diary  and  Letters  of  Madame  d'Arblay,  January,  1843. 
The  Life  and  Writings  of  Addison,  July,  1843. 
Barere's  Memoirs,  April,  1844. 
The  Earl  of  Chatham,  October,  1844. 


(4)  BIOGRAPHIES    PUBLISHED    IN    THE 
"ENCYCLOPEDIA   BRITANNICA" 

Francis  Atterbury,  December,  1853. 

John  Bunyan,  May,  1854. 

Oliver  Goldsmith,  February,  1856. 


xlii  INTRODUCTION 

Samuel  Johnson,  December,  1856. 
William  Pitt,  January,  1859. 

(5)  SPEECHES,    CHIEFLY  IN  PARLIAMENT 

Jewish  Disabilities,  April  5,  1830  ;  April  17,  1833. 

Parliamentary  Keforrn,  March  2,  1831 ;  July  5,  1831 ;  Septem- 
ber 20,  1831  ;  October  10,  1831 ;  December  16,  1831 ; 
February  28,  1832. 

Anatomy  Bill,  February  27,  1832. 

Repeal  of  the  Union  with  Ireland,  February  6,  1833. 

The  Government  of  India,  July  10,  1833. 

The  Edinburgh  Election  of  1839,  May  29,  1839. 

Confidence  in  the  Ministry  of  Lord  Melbourne,  January  29,  1840. 

War  with  China,  April  7,  1840. 

Copyright,  February  5,  1841  ;  April  6,  1842. 

The  People's  Charter,  May  3,  1842. 

The  Gates  of  Somnauth,  March  9,  1843. 

The  Treaty  of  Washington,  March  21,  1843. 

The  State  of  Ireland,  February  19,  1844. 

Dissenters'  Chapels  Bill,  June  16,  1844. 

Post  Office  Espionage,  June  245  1844. 

Opening  Letters  in  the  Post  Office,  July  2,  1844. 

Sugar  Duties,  February  26,  1845. 

Maynooth,  April  14,  1845. 

Theological  Tests  in  the  Scotch  Universities,  July  9,  1845. 

Corn  Laws,  December  2,  1845. 

•The  Ten  Hours'  Bill,  May  22,  1846. 

The  Literature  of  Britain,  November  4,  1846. 


JOHNSON'S     WORKS  xliii 

Education,  April  19,  1847. 

Inaugural  Speech  at  the  University  of  Glasgow,  March  21,  1849. 

On  Retiring  from  Political  Life,  March  22,  1849. 

Reelection  to  Parliament,  November  2,  1852. 

Exclusion  of  Judges  from  the  House  of  Commons,  June  1,  1853. 

(6)  THE   INDIAN   PENAL   CODE 

Introductory  Report  on  the  Indian  Penal  Code,  October  14,  1837. 
Notes  on  the  Penal  Code. 

(7)  THE    HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND 

The  History  of  England  from  the  Accession  of  James  the  Second. 
Vols.  I.  and  II.,  1848  ;  Vols.  III.  and  IV.,  1855 ;  Vol.  V., 
I860. 


III.     JOHNSON'S  PRINCIPAL  WORKS 

Irene,  a  Tragedy.    Nearly  completed  in  1737. 

Contributions  to  the  Gentleman's  Magazine,  begun  in  1738. 

London,  a  Satire,  1738. 

Reports  of  the  Debates  of  the  Senate  of  Lilliput,  1740-1743. 

Life  of  Savage,  1744. 

Dictionary  of  the  English  Language,  1747-1755. 

The  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes,  a  Satire,  1749. 

The  Rambler,  1750-1752. 

Papers  in' The  Adventurer,  1752. 

Papers  in  the  Literary  Magazine,  1756-1757. 

The  Idler,  1758-1760. 


zliv  IXTJtODUCTIOli 

Rasselas,  1759. 

A  Journey  to  the  Hebrides,  1775. 
Taxation  no  Tyranny,  1775. 
Lives  of  the  Poets,  1777-1781. 


IV.  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE  OF  ENGLISH 
HISTORY  AND  LITERATURE  IN  JOHN- 
SON'S TIME 

1701-1714.    Queen  Anne. 

1709.     The  Tatler. 

1711.     The  Spectator. 

1714-1727.    George  I. 

1715-1774.    Louis  XV.,  King  of  France. 

1715.    First  Jacobite  Rising  under  "James  III.,"  or  "The  Old 

Pretender." 
1715.     Pope's  Iliad. 
1723.    Pope's  Odyssey. 
1726.    Swift's  Gulliver's  Travels. 
1727-1760.     George  II. 
17:50.    Thomson's  Seasons. 
1732.    Pope's  Essay  on  Man. 

1740-1786.    Frederick  II.,  "  the  Great,"  King  of  Prussia. 
1740-1780.     Maria  Theresa,  "  The  Empress  Queen  "  of  Austria 

and  Hungary. 
1740-1748.   War  of  the  Austrian  Succession.   (In  America  called 

King  George's  War.) 
1740.     Richardson's  Pamela. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  xlv 

1742.     Fielding's  Joseph  Andreics. 

1745-1746.     Second  Jacobite   Rising  under  Charles    Edward, 
"  The  Young  Pretender." 

1748.  Richardson's  Clarissa  Harlowe. 

1749.  Fielding's  Tom  Jones. 
1751.     Gray's  Elegy. 

1754.     Hume's  History  of  England. 

1756.    Burke's  Sublime  and  Beautiful. 

1756-1763.    Seven  Years'  War.     (In  America  called  the  French 

and  Indian  War.) 
1759.    Sterne's  Tristram  Shandy, 
1760-1820.     George  III. 

1765.  The  Stamp  Act, 

1766.  Goldsmith's  Vicar  of  Wakefield. 

1769.  Letters  of  Jit  nuts. 

1770.  Goldsmith's  Deserted  Village. 
1773.     Goldsmith's  She  Stoops  to  Conquer. 

1775.  Battle  of  Lexington.     Sheridan's  Rivals. 

1776.  Declaration   of  Independence.     Gibbon's   Decline   and 
Fall  of  the  Eoman  Empire. 

1777.  Sheridan's  School  for  Scandal. 
1783.    Peace  with  America. 


V.  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

(1)  MACAULAY 

Adams,  Charles  :     Life  Sketches  of  Macaulay. 
Arnold,  M.  :  Mixed  Essays. 


xlvi  INTRODUCTION 

Bagehot :  Estimate  of  Some  Englishmen  and  Scotchmen. 

Gladstone  :  Gleanings  of  Past  Years. 

Jebb  :  Lecture  on  Macaulay. 

Jones,  C.  H. :  Life  of  Lord  Macaulay. 

Minto  :  Manual  of  English  Prose  Literature. 

Morison  :  Macaulay  (English  Men  of  Letters  Series). 

Morley  :  English  Literature  in  the  Reign  of  Victoria,  Ch.  VIL 

Stephen  :  Hours  in  a  Library,  Third  Series. 

Taine  :  English  Literature,  Bk.  V.,  Ch.  III. 

Trevelyan  :  Life  and  Letters  of  Macaulay.    2  Volumes. 

Whipple  :  Essays  and  Reviews. 

(2)  JOHNSON  AND   HIS   PERIOD 

Boswell :    Life  of  Johnson.     (The  best  edition  is  that  of  G. 

Birkbeck  Hill.) 
Carlyle  :  Essay  on  BoswelVs  Life  of  Johnson.     (Extracts  are 

given  in  the  Appendix.) 

D'Arblay,  Mme. :  Diary  and  Letters  and  Early  Journals. 
Gosse  :  History  of  Eighteenth  Century  Literature. 
Grant :  Johnson.     (Great  Writers  Series.) 
Green :  Short  History  of  the  English  People. 
Hawkins:  Life  of  Johnson. 

Hill,  G.  B. :  Dr.  Johnson,  his  Friends  and  his  Critics. 
Lecky  :  History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century. 
Macaulay  :  Essays  on  Addison,    Walpole,  Earl  of  Chatham, 

Goldsmith,    Madame    d'Arblay,    and    Croker's    Boswell. 

(Extracts    from  the  one  last   named  are  given  in  the 

Appendix.) 
Minto  :  Manual  of  English  Prose  Literature. 


NOTE    ON  METHODS    OF   STUDY  xlvii 

Nichol :  Literary  Anecdotes  of  the  Eighteenth  Century. 

Piozzi,  Mrs.:  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 

Scoone  :  Four  Centuries  of  English  Letters.    (This  contains  in 

part  the  correspondence  of  Johnson  and  Mrs.  Thrale.) 
Stephen  :  Johnson  (English  men  of  Letters  Series)  ;  Hours  in 

a  Library  ;  History  of  English  Thought  in  the  Eighteenth 

Centui~y. 
Thackeray  :  English  Humorists  and  The  Four  Georges. 


VI.     IsOTE  OX  METHODS   OF   STUDY 

It  is  impossible  to  lay  down  any  method  of  study  for  this 
work  which  would  suit  even  the  majority  of  teachers  or  classes. 
Every  teacher  of  English  who  is  worth  anything  will  have  his 
own  method  of  imbuing  his  pupils  with  a  knowledge  and  love 
of  the  master  works  of  our  literature.  The  main  point  is  to 
make  the  study  interesting.  A  dry  method,  though  it  may  be 
scholarly  and  thorough,  with  secondary  school  pupils  at  least, 
often  defeats  its  own  end.  It  makes  no  lasting  impression.  All 
the  average  pupil  acquires  is  an  extreme  dislike  for  our  classic 
literature.  I  well  remember  with  what  diabolical  glee  I  burnt 
my  Virgil  when  its  study  was  completed  —  that  Virgil  which,  in 
after  years,  I  read  with  intense  delight. 

Macaulay's  Life  of  Johnson  is  such  a  good  narrative,  so 
clearly  and  vivaciously  told,  that  the  pupils,  if  they  are  not  at 
first  bothered  with  technical  points  of  style,  will  read  it  through 
with  much  pleasure.  Those  notes  which  give  extracts  from 
Boswell  and  other  authorities  on  Johnson,  and  characteristic 


xlviii  INTRODUCTION 

bits  of  Johnson's  own  writings,  may  be  used  to  increase  the 
interest.  By  no  means  should  the  pupils  be  required  to  learn 
them.  Then  some  of  the  extracts  from  Macaulay's  and  Car- 
lyle's essays  on  Croker's  Boswell  given  in  the  Appendix  may  be 
employed  to  heighten  the  interest  and  to  lead  the  pupils  from 
Macaulay's  vivid  but  superficial  picture  to  Carlyle's  deeper  and 
more  sympathetic  insight.  Johnson's  place  in  English  litf  rary 
history  may  be  studied  by  means  of  the  admirable  passage  from 
Leslie  Stephen  in  the  Appendix,  the  notes  which  refer  to  con- 
temporary writers,  and  some  of  the  extracts  from  Carlyle.  The 
chronological  table  may  also  be  found  of  value  here. 

As  for  the  study  of  Macaulay's  style,  much  will  depend  upon 
the  judgment  of  the  teacher  and  the  capacity  of  the  class.  A 
general  criticism  of  his  style  is  given  in  the  biographical  sketch 
of  Macaulay  in  the  Introduction.  Every  English  teacher  should 
be  familiar  with  Minto's  Manual  of  English  Prose  Literature, 
and  should  give  his  pupils  as  much  of  this  as  he  thinks  they  can 
acquire.  Single  paragraphs  of  the  Life  of  Johnson  may  be 
selected  for  intensive  study  ;  and  much  interest  may  be  aroused 
by  a  comparative  study  of  Macaulay's  and  Carlyle's  method  of 
treating  the  same  subject.  In  this  way  dry  technicalities  may 
be  made  quite  exciting.  The  pupils  may  also  be  required  to 
imitate  Macaulay's  style  in  written  reports  of  investigations 
suggested  by  the  literary  and  historical  references  given  in  the 
notes.  But,  after  all,  everything  depends  on  the  teacher.  He 
will  be  either  a  taskmaster  or  an  inspiration. 


MACAULAY'S    ESSAY    ON 
SAMUEL  JOHNSON 


SAMUEL   JOHNSON 


(Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  December,  1856) 

SAMUEL  JOHNSON,  one  of  the  most  eminent  English 
writers  of  the  eighteenth  century,  was  the  son  of 
Michael  Johnson,  who  was,  at  the  beginning  of  that 
century,  a  magistrate  of  Lichfield,0  and  a  bookseller 
of  great  note  in  the  midland  counties.  Michael's  5 
abilities  and  attainments  seem  to  have  been  consid- 
erable. He  was  so  well  acquainted  with  the  contents 
of  the  volumes  which  he  exposed  to  sale,  that  the 
country  rectors  of  Staffordshire  and  Worcestershire0 
thought  him  an  oracle  on  points  of  learning.  Between  10 
him  and  the  clergy,  indeed,  there  was  a  strong  reli- 
gious and  political  sympathy.  He  was  a  zealous 
churchman,0  and,  though  he  had  qualified  himself  for 
municipal  office  by  taking  the  oaths  to  the  sovereigns  in 


possession,0  was  to  the  last  a  Jacobite0,  in  heart.     At  15 
his  house,  a  house  which  is  still  pointed  out  to  every 
traveller  who  visits  Lichfield,  Samuel  was  born  on  the 
18th  of  September,  1709.     In  the  child  the  physical, 


2  SAMUEL   JOHNSON 

intellectual,  and  moral  peculiarities  which  afterwards 
distinguished  the  man  were  plainly  discernible ;  great 
muscular  strength  accompanied  by  much  awkwardness 
and  many  infirmities;  great  quickness  of  parts,  with 
5  a  morbid  propensity  to  sloth  and  procrastination ;  a 
kind  and  generous  heart,  with  a  gloomy  and  irritable 
temper.  He  had  inherited  from  his  ancestors  a  scrof- 
ulous taint,  which  it  was  beyond  the  power  of  medi- 
cine to  remove.  His  parents  were  weak  enough  to 

10  believe  that  the  royal  touch0  was  a  specific  for  this 
malady.  In  his  third  year  he  was  taken  up  to  Lon- 
don, inspected  by  the  court  surgeon,  prayed  over  by 
the  court  chaplains,  and  stroked  and  presented  with 
a  piece  of  gold  by  Queen  Anne.  One  of  his  earliest 

15  recollections  was  that  of  a  stately  lady  in  a  diamond 
stomacher  and  a  long  black  hood.  Her  hand  was 
applied  in  vain.0  The  boy's  features,  which  were 
originally  noble  and  not  irregular,  were  distorted  by 
his  malady.  His  cheeks  were  deeply  scarred.  He 

20  lost  for  a  time  the  sight  of  one  eye ;  and  he  saw  but 
very  imperfectly  with  the  other.  But  the  force  of  his 
mind  overcame  every  impediment.  Indolent  as  he 
was,  he  acquired  knowledge  with  such  ease  and  rapid- 
ity that  at  every  school  to  which  he  was  sent  he  was 

25  soon  the  best  scholar.     From  sixteen  to  eighteen  he 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  3 

resided  at  home,  and  was  left  to  his  own  devices.  He 
learned  much  at  this  time,  though  his  studies  were 
without  guidance  and  without  plan.  He  ransacked 
his  father's  shelves,  dipped  into  a  multitude  of  books, 
read  what  was  interesting,  and  passed  over  what  was  5 
dull.  An  ordinary  lad  would  have  acquired  little  or 
no  useful  knowledge  in  such  a  way :  but  much  that 
was  dull  to  ordinary  lads  was  interesting  to  Samuel. 
He  read  little  Greek ;  for  his  proficiency  in  that  lan- 
guage was  not  such  that  he  could  take  much  pleasure  10 
in  the  masters  of  Attic  poetry  and  eloquence.0  But 
he  had  left  school  a  good  Latinist,  and  he  soon  ac- 
quired, in  the  large  and  miscellaneous  library  of 
which  he  now  had  the  command,  an  extensive  know- 
ledge of  Latin  literature.  That  Augustan0  delicacy  15 
of  taste,  which  is  the  boast  of  the  great  public  schools 
of  England,0  he  never  possessed.  But  he  was  early 
familiar  with  some  classical  writers,  who  were  quite 
unknown  to  the  best  scholars  in  the  sixth  form  at 
Eton.  He  was  peculiarly  attracted  by  the  works  of  20 
the  great  restorers  of  learning.0  Once,  while  search- 
ing for  some  apples,  he  found  a  huge  folio  volume  of 
Petrarch's  works.0  The  name  excited  his  curiosity, 
and  he  eagerly  devoured  hundreds  of  pages.  Indeed, 
the  diction  and  versification  of  his  own  Latin  compo-  25 


4  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

sitions  show  that  he  had  paid  at  least  as  much  atten- 
tion to  modern  copies   from  the  antique  as  to  the 
original  models. 
While  he  was  thus  irregularly  educating  himself,  his 

5  family  was  sinking  into  hopeless  poverty.  Old  Michael 
Johnson  was  much  better  qualified  to  pore  upon  books, 
and  to  talk  about  them,  than  to  trade  in  them.  His 
business  declined :  his  debts  increased :  it  was  with 
difficulty  that  the  daily  expenses  of  his  household 

10  were  defrayed.  It  was  out  of  his  power  to  support 
his  son  at  either  university  ° ;  but  a  wealthy  neighbour 
offered  assistance  ;  and,  in  reliance  on  promises  which 
proved  to  be  of  very  little  value,  Samuel  was  entered 
at  Pembroke  College,0  Oxford.  When  the  young 

15  scholar  presented  himself  to  the  rulers  of  that  society, 
they  were  amazed  not  more  by  his  ungainly  figure  and 
eccentric  manners  than  by  the  quantity  of  extensive 
and  curious  information  which  he  had  picked  up  dur- 
ing many  months  of  desultory,  but  not  unprofitable 

20  study.  On  the  first  day  of  his  residence  he  surprised 
his  teachers  by  quoting  Macrobius;0  and  one  of  the 
most  learned  among  them  declared,  that  he  had  never 
known  a  freshman  of  equal  attainments. 

At   Oxford,   Johnson   resided    during  about    three 

25  years.     He  was   poor,  even  to   raggedness ;    and   his 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  5 

appearance  excited  a  mirth  and  a  pity,  which  were 
equally  intolerable  to  his  haughty  spirit.  He  was 
driven  from  the  quadrangle  of  Christ  Church0  by  the 
sneering  looks  which  the  members  of  that  aristocrati- 
cal  society  cast  at  the  holes  in  his  shoes.  Some  chari-  5 
table  person  placed  a  new  pair  at  his  door;  but  he 
spurned  them  away  in  a  fury.  Distress  made  him, 
not  servile,  but  reckless  and  ungovernable.  No  opu- 
lent gentleman  commoner,0  panting  for  one-and-twenty, 
could  have  treated  the  academical  authorities  with  more  10 
gross  disrespect.  The  needy  scholar  was  generally  to 
be  seen  under  the  gate  of  Pembroke,  a  gate  now 
adorned  with  his  effigy,  haranguing  a  circle  of  lads, 
over  whom,  in  spite  of  his  tattered  gown  and  dirty 
linen,  his  wit  and  audacity  gave  him  an  undisputed  15 
ascendency.  In  every  mutiny  against  the  discipline 
of  the  college  he  was  the  ringleader.0  Much  was 
pardoned,  however,  to  a  youth  so  highly  distinguished 
by  abilities  and  acquirements.0  He  had  early  made 
himself  known  by  turning  Pope's  Messiah0  into  Latin  20 
verse.  The  style  and  rhythm,  indeed,  were  not  ex- 
actly Virgilian ;°  but  the  translation  found  many  ad- 
mirers, and  was  read  with  pleasure  by  Pope  himself. 

The  time  drew  near  at  which  Johnson  would,  in  the 
ordinary  course  of  things,  have  become  a  Bachelor  of  25 


6  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

Arts0 :  but  he  was  at  the  end  of  his  resources.  Those 
promises  of  support  on  which  he  had  relied  had  not 
been  kept.  His  family  could  do  nothing  for  him. 
His  debts  to  Oxford  tradesmen  were  small  indeed, 
5  yet  larger  than  he  could  pay.  In  the  autumn  of  1731, 
he  was  under  the  necessity  of  quitting  the  university 
without  a  degree.  In  the  following  winter  his  father 
died.  The  old  man  left  but  a  pittance;  and  of  that 
pittance  almost  the  whole  was  appropriated  to  the 

i*  support  of  his  widow.  The  property  to  which  Samuel 
succeeded  amounted  to  no  more  than  twenty  pounds. 

His  life,  during  the  thirty  years  which  followed,  was 
one  hard  struggle  with  poverty.  The  misery  of  that 
struggle  needed  no  aggravation,  but  was  aggravated 

15  by  the  sufferings  of  an  unsound  body  and  an  unsound 
mind.  Before  the  young  man  left  the  university,  his 
hereditary  malady  had  broken  forth  in  a  singularly 
cruel  form.  He  had  become  an  incurable  hypochon- 
driac. He  said  long  after  that  he  had  been  mad  all 

*>  his  life,  or  at  least  not  perfectly  sane ;  and,  in  truth, 
eccentricities  less  strange  than  his  have  often  been 
thought  grounds  sufficient  for  absolving  felons,  and 
for  setting  aside  wills.0  His  grimaces,  his  gestures, 
his  mutterings,  sometimes  diverted  and  sometimes 

25  terrified  people  who  did  hot  know  him.     At  a  dinner 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  7 

table  he  would,  in  a  fit  of  absence,  stoop  down  and 
twitch  off  a  lady's  shoe.  He  would  ainaze  a  drawing- 
room  by  suddenly  ejaculating  a  clause  of  the  Lord's 
Prayer.  He  would  conceive  an  unintelligible  aversion 
to  a  particular  alley,  and  perform  a  great  circuit  rather  5 
than  see  the  hateful  place.  He  would  set  his  heart 
on  touching  every  post  on  the  streets  through  which 
he  walked.  If  by  any  chance  he  missed  a  post,  he 
would  go  back  a  hundred  yards  and  repair  the  omis- 
sion. Under  the  influence  of  his  disease,  his  senses  10 
became  morbidly  torpid,  and  his  imagination  mor- 
bidly active.  At  one  time  he  would  stand  poring  on 
the  town  clock  without  being  able  to  tell  the  hour. 
At  another,  he  would  distinctly  hear  his  mother,  who 
was  many  miles  off,  calling  him  by  his  name.  But  15 
this  was  not  the  worst.  A  deep  melancholy  took 
possession  of  him,  and  gave  a  dark  tinge  to  all  his 
views  of  human  nature  and  of  human  destiny.  Such 
wretchedness  as  he  endured  has  driven  many  men 
to  shoot  themselves  or  drown  themselves.  But  he  20 
was  under  no  temptation  to  commit  suicide.  He  was 
sick  of  life ;  but  he  was  afraid  of  death  ;  and  he  shud- 
dered at  every  sight  or  sound  which  reminded  him  of 
the  inevitable  hour.  In  religion  he  found  but  little  com- 
fort during  his  long  and  frequent  fits  of  dejection ;  25 


8  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

for  his  religion0  partook  of  his  own  character.  The 
light  from  heaven  shone  on  him  indeed,  but  not  in  a 
direct  line,  or  with  its  own  pure  splendour.  The  rays 
had  to  struggle  through  a  disturbing  medium :  they 
5  reached  him  refracted,  dulled  and  discoloured  by  the 
thick  gloom  which  had  settled  on  his  soul ;  and,  though 
they  might  be  sufficiently  clear  to  guide  him,  were  too 
dim  to  cheer  him.0 

With  such  infirmities  of  body  and  of  mind,  this 

10  celebrated  man  was  left,  at  two-and-twenty,  to  fight 
his  way  through  the  world.  He  remained  during 
about  five  years  in  the  midland  countries.  At  Lich- 
field,  his  birth-place  and  his  early  home,  he  had 
inherited  some  friends  and  acquired  others.  He  was 

15  kindly  noticed  by  Henry  Hervey,  a  gay  officer  of 
noble  family,  who  happened  to  be  quartered  there. 
Gilbert  Walmesley,  registrar  of  the  ecclesiastical 
court  of  the  diocese,  a  man  of  distinguished  parts, 
learning,  and  knowledge  of  the  world,  did  himself 

20  honour  by  patronising  the  young  adventurer,  whose 
repulsive  person,  unpolished  manners,  and  squalid 
garb,  moved  many  of  the  petty  aristocracy  of  the 
neighbourhood  to  laughter  or  to  disgust.  At  Lich- 
field,  however,  Johnson  could  find  no  way  of  earning 

25  a  livelihood.     He  became  usher  of  a  grammar  school0 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  9 

in  Leicestershire ;  he  resided  as  a  humble  companion 
in  the  house  of  a  country  gentleman ;  but  a  life  of 
dependence  was  insupportable  to  his  haughty  spirit. 
He  repaired  to  Birmingham,  and  there  earned  a  few 
guineas  by  literary  drudgery.  In  that  town  he  5 
printed  a  translation,  little  noticed  at  the  time,  and 
long  forgotten,  of  a  Latin  book  about  Abyssinia.0  He 
then  put  forth  proposals  for  publishing  by  subscription 
the  poems  of  Politian,0  with  notes  containing  a  history 
of  modern  Latin  verse ;  but  subscriptions  did  not  10 
come  in ;  and  the  volume  never  appeared. 

[While  leading  this  vagrant  and  miserable  life,  John- 
sou  fell  in  love.  The  object  of  his  passion  was  Mrs. 
Elizabeth  Porter,  a  widow  who  had  children  as  old  as 
himself.  To  ordinary  spectators,  the  lady  appeared  to  15 
be  a  short,  fat,  coarse  woman,  painted  half  an  inch 
thick,  dressed  in  gaudy  colours,  and  fond  of  exhibit- 
ing provincial  airs  and  graces  which  were  not  exactly 
those  of  the  Queensberrys  and  Lepels.0  To  Johnson, 
however,  whose  passions  were  strong,  whose  eyesight  20 
was  too  weak  to  distinguish  ceruse  from  natural  bloom, 
and  who  had  seldom  or  never  been  in  the  same  room 
with  a  woman  of  real  fashion,  his  Titty,0  as  he  called 
her,  was  the  most  beautiful,  graceful,  and  accomplished 
of  her  sex.  That  his  admiration  was  unfeigned  can-  25 


10  SAMUEL    JOHNSO& 

not  be  doubted ;  for  she  was  as  poor  as  himself.0  She 
accepted,  with  a  readiness  which  did  her  little 
honour,  the  addresses  of  a  suitor  who  might  have  been 
her  son.0  The  marriage,  however,  in  spite  of  occasional 
5  wranglings,  proved  happier  than  might  have  been 
expected.  The  lover  continued  to  be  under  the 
illusions  of  the  wedding-day  till  the  lady  died  in  her 
sixty-fourth  year.  On  her  monument  he  placed  an 
inscription  extolling  the  charms  of  her  person 

to  and  of  her  manner ;  and  when,  long  after  her  decease, 
he  had  occasion  to  mention  her,  he  exclaimed,  with 
a  tenderness  half  ludicrous,  half  pathetic,  "  Pretty 
creature0 !  " 

His  marriage  made  it  necessary  for  him  to  exert 

15  himself  more  strenuously  than  he  had  hitherto  done. 
He  took  a  house  in  the  neighbourhood  of  his  native 
town,  and  advertised  for  pupils.  But  eighteen  months 
passed  away ;  and  only  three  pupils  came  to  his 
academy.  Indeed,  his  appearance  was  so  strange,  and 

20  his  temper  so  violent,  that  his  schoolroom  must  have 
resembled  an  ogre's  den.  Nor  was  the  tawdry  painted 
grandmother  whom  he  called  his  Titty  well  qualified 
to  make  provision  for  the  comfort  of  young  gentlemen. 
David  Garrick,0  who  was  one  of  the  pupils,  used, 

25  many   years    later,   to   throw   the   best   company   of 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  11 

London  into  convulsions  of  laughter  by  mimicking  the 
endearments  of  this  extraordinary  pair. 

At  length  Johnson,  in  the  twenty-eighth  year  of  his 
age,  determined  to  seek  his  fortune  in  the  capital  as  a 
literary  adventurer.  He  set  out  with  a  few  guineas,  5 
three  acts  of  the  tragedy  of  Irene0  in  manuscript,  and 
two  or  three  letters  of  introduction  from  his  friend 
Walmesley. 

Never,  since  literature  became  a  calling  in  England, 
had  it  been  a  less  gainful  calling  than  at  the  time  10 
when  Johnson  took  up  his  residence  in  London.  In 
the  preceding  generation  a  writer  of  eminent  merit 
was  sure  to  be  munificently  rewarded  by  the  govern- 
ment. The  least  that  he  could  expect  was  a  pension 
or  a  sinecure  place ;  and,  if  he  showed  any  aptitude  15 
for  politics,  he  might  hope  to  be  a  member  of  parlia- 
ment, a  lord  of  the  treasury,  an  ambassador,  a 
secretary  of  state.0  It  would  be  easy,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  name  several  writers  of  the  nineteenth 
century  of  whom  the  least  successful  has  received  20 
forty  thousand  pounds  from  the  booksellers.  But 
Johnson  entered  on  his  vocation  in  the  most  dreary 
part  of  the  dreary  interval  which  separated  two  ages 
of  prosperity.  Literature  had  ceased  to  flourish  un- 
der the  patronage  of  the  great,  and  had  not  begun  25 


12  SAMUEL    JOHXSON 

to  flourish  under  the  patronage  of  the  public.  One 
man  of  letters,  indeed,  Pope,  had  acquired  by  his  pen 
what  was  then  considered  as  a  handsome  fortune,  and 
lived  on  a  footing  of  equality  with  nobles  and  minis- 
5  ters  of  state.  But  this  was  a  solitary  exception. 
Even  an  author  whose  reputation  was  established,  and 
whose  works  were  popular,  such  an  author  as  Thom- 
son,0 whose  Seasons  were  in  every  library,  such  an 
author  as  Fielding,0  whose  Pasquin  had  had  a  greater 
10  run  than  any  drama  since  TJie  Beggar's  Opera,0  was 
sometimes  glad  to  obtain,  by  pawning  his  best  coat, 
the  means  of  dining  on  tripe  at  a  cookshop  underground, 
where  he  could  wipe  his  hands,  after  his  greasy  meal, 
on  the  back  of  a  Newfoundland  dog.  It  is  easy,  there- 
is  fore,  to  imagine  what  humiliations  and  privations 
must  have  awaited  the  novice  who  had  still  to  earn  a 
name.  One  of  the  publishers  to  whom  Johnson 
applied  for  employment  measured  with  a  scornful  eye 
that  athletic  though  uncouth  frame,  and  exclaimed, 
20  "  You  had  better  get  a  porter's  knot,0  and  carry 
trunks."  Nor  was  the  advice  bad,  for  a  porter  was 
likely  to  be  as  plentifully  fed  and  as  comfortably  lodged, 
as  a  poet. 

Some  time  appears  to  have  elapsed  before  Johnson 
25  was  able  to  form  any  literary  connection  from  which 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  13 

he  could  expect  more  than  bread  for  the  day  which  was 
passing  over  him.  He  never  forgot  the  generosity 
with  which  Hervey,  who  was  now  residing  in  London, 
relieved  his  wants  during  this  time  of  trial.  "  Harry 
Hervey,"  said  the  old  philosopher  many  years  later,  5 
"  was  a  vicious  man ;  but  he  was  very  kind  to  me.  If 
you  call  a  dog  Hervey  I  shall  love  him."  At  Hervey's 
table  Johnson  sometimes  enjoyed  feasts  which  were 
made  more  agreeable  by  contrast.  But  in  general  he 
dined,  and  thought  that,,  he  dined  well,  on  sixpenny  10 
worth  of  meat,  and  a  pennyworth  of  bread,  at  an 
alehouse  near  Drury  Lane.0 

The  effect  of  the  privations  and  sufferings  which  he 
endured  at  this  time  was  discernible  to  the  last  in  his 
temper  and  his  deportment.  His  manners  had  never  15 
been  courtly.  They  now  became  almost  savage. 
Being  frequently  under  the  necessity  of  wearing 
shabby  coats  and  dirty  shirts,  he  became  a  confirmed 
sloven.  Being  often  very  hungry  when  he  sate  down 
to  his  meals,  he  contracted  a  habit  of  eating  with  20 
ravenous  greediness.  Even  to  the  end  of  his  life,  and 
even  at  the  tables  of  the  great,  the  sight  of  food 
affected  him  as  it  affects  wild  beasts  and  birds  of  prey. 
His  taste  in  cookery,  formed  in  subterranean  ordi- 
naries0 and  Alamode  beefshops,  was  far  from  delicate.  25 


14  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

Whenever  he  was  so  fortunate  as  to  have  near  him  a 
hare  that  had  been  kept  too  long,  or  a  meat  pie  made 
with  rancid  butter,  he  gorged  himself  with  such  vio- 
lence that  his  veins  swelled,  and  the  moisture  broke 
S  but  on  his  forehead.  The  affronts  which  his  poverty 
emboldened  stupid  and  low-minded  men  to  offer  to 
him  would  have  broken  a  mean  spirit  into  sycophancy, 
but  made  him  rude  even  to  ferocity.0  Unhappily  the 
insolence  which,  while  it  was  defensive,  was  pardon- 

10  able,  and  in  some  sense  respectable,  accompanied  him 
into  societies  where  he  was  treated  with  courtesy  and 
kindness.0  He  was  repeatedly  provoked  into  striking 
those  who  had  taken  liberties  with  him.  All  the  suf- 
ferers, however,  were  wise  enough  to  abstain  from 

15  talking  about  their  beatings,  except  Osborne,0  the 
most  rapacious  and  brutal  of  booksellers,  who  pro- 
claimed everywhere  that  he  had  been  knocked  down 
by  the  huge  fellow  whom  he  had  hired  to  puff  the 
Harleian  Library.0 

20  About  a  year  after  Johnson  had  begun  to  reside  in 
London,  he  was  fortunate  enough  to  obtain  regular 
employment  from  Cave,  an  enterprising  and  intelli- 
gent bookseller,  who  was  proprietor  and  editor  of  the 
Gentleman's  Magazine.0  That  journal,  just  entering 

25  on  the  ninth  year  of  its  long  existence,  was  the  only 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  15 

periodical  work  in  the  kingdom  which  then  had  what 
would  now  be  called  a  large  circulation.  It  was,  in- 
deed, the  chief  source  of  parliamentary  intelligence. 
It  was  not  then  safe,  even  during  a  recess,  to  publish 
an  account  of  the  proceedings  of  either  House  without  5 
some  disguise.  Cave,  however,  ventured  to  entertain 
his  readers  with  what  he  called  Reports  of  the  De- 
bates of  the  Senate  of  Lilliput.0  France  was  Ble- 
fuscu :  London  was  Mildendo :  pounds  were  sprugs : 
the  Duke  of  Newcastle  was  the  Nardac  Secretary  of  10 
State :  Lord  Hardwicke0  was  the  Hurgo  Hickrad ;  and 
William  Pulteney0  was  Wingul  Pulnub.  To  write  the 
speeches  was,  during  several  years,  the  business  of 
Johnson.  He  was  generally  furnished  with  notes, 
meagre  indeed,  and  inaccurate,  of  what  had  been  said ;  15 
but  sometimes  he  had  to  find  arguments  and  eloquence 
both  for  the  ministry  and  for  the  opposition.  He  was 
himself  a  Tory,  not  from  rational  conviction  —  for  his 
serious  opinion  was  that  one  form  of  government  was 
just  as  good  or  as  bad  as  another  —  but  from  mere  20 
passion,  such  as  inflamed  the  Capulets  against  the 
Montagues,0  or  the  Blues  of  the  Roman  circus  against 
the  Greens.0  In  his  infancy  he  had  heard  so  much 
talk  about  the  villanies  of  the  Whigs,  and  the  dangers 
of  the  Church,  that  he  had  become  a  furious  partisan  25 


16  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

when  lie  could  scarcely  speak.  Before  he  was  three 
he  had  insisted  on  being  taken  to  hear  Sacheverell0 
preach  at  Lichfield  Cathedral,  and  had  listened  to  the 
sermon  with  as  much  respect,  and  probably  with  as 
5  much  intelligence,  as  any  Staffordshire  squire  in  the 
congregation.  The  work  which  had  been  begun  in 
the  nursery  had  been  completed  by  the  university. 
Oxford,  when  Johnson  resided  there,  was  the  most 
Jacobitical  place  in  England ;  and  Pembroke  was  one 

10  of  the  most  Jacobitical  colleges  in  Oxford.  The 
prejudices  which  he  brought  up  to  London  were 
scarcely  less  absurd  than  those  of  his  own  Tom  Tem- 
pest.0 Charles  II.  and  James  II. °  were  two  of  the 
best  kings  that  ever  reigned.  Laud,0  a  poor  creature 

15  who  never  did,  said,  or  wrote  anything  indicating 
more  than  the  ordinary  capacity  of  an  old  woman, 
was  a  prodigy  of  parts  and  learning  over  whose  tomb 
Art  and  Genius  still  continued  to  weep.  Hampden0 
deserved  no  more  honourable  name  than  that  of  "the 

20  zealot  of  rebellion."  Even  the  ship  money,0  con- 
demned not  less  decidedly  by  Falkland0  and  Claren- 
don0 than  by  the  bitterest  Roundheads,0  Johnson 
would  not  pronouuce  to  have  been  an  unconstitutional 
impost.  Under  a  government,  the  mildest  that  had 

25  ever  been  known  in  the  world,  under  a  government 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  17 

which  allowed  to  the  people  an  unprecedented  liberty 
of  speech  and  action,  he  fancied  that  he  was  a  slave ; 
he  assailed  the  ministry  with  obloquy  which  refuted 
itself,  and  regretted  the  lost  freedom  and  happiness 
of  those  golden  days  in  which  a  writer  who  had  taken  5 
but  one-tenth  part  of  the  license  allowed  to  him  would 
have  been  pilloried,  mangled  with  the  shears,0  whipped 
at  the  cart's  tail,  and  flung  into  a  noisome  dungeon  to 
die.  He  hated  dissenters0  and  stockjobbers,  the  ex- 
cise and  the  army,  septennial  parliaments,  and  conti-  10 
nental  connections.  He  long  had  an  aversion  to  the 
Scotch,  an  aversion  of  which  he  could  not  remember 
the  commencement,  but  which,  he  owned,  had  probably 
originated  in  his  abhorrence  of  the  conduct  of  the 
nation  during  the  Great  Kebellion.0  It  is  easy  to  15 
guess  in  what  manner  debates  on  great  party  ques- 
tions were  likely  to  be  reported  by  a  man  whose  judg- 
ment was  so  much  disordered  by  party  spirit.  A  show 
of  fairness  was  indeed  necessary  to  the  prosperity  of 
the  Magazine.  But  Johnson  long  afterwards  owned  20 
that,  though  he  had  saved  appearances,  he  had  taken 
care  that  the  Whig  dogs  should  not  have  the  best  of 
it ;  and,  in  fact,  every  passage  which  has  lived,  every 
passage  which  bears  the  marks  of  his  higher  faculties, 
is  put  into  the  mouth  of  some  member  of  the  opposition.  25 


18  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

A  few  weeks  after  Johnson  had  entered  on  these 
obscure  labours,  he  published  a  work  which  at  once 
placed  him  high  among  the  writers  of  his  age.  It  is 
probable  that  what  he  had  suffered  during  his  first 
5  year  in  London  had  often  reminded  him  of  some  parts 
of  that  noble  poem  in  which  Juvenal0  had  described 
the  misery  and  degradation  of  a  needy  man  of  letters, 
lodged  among  the  pigeons'  nests  in  the  tottering 
garrets  which  overhung  the  streets  of  Rome.  Pope's 

io  admirable  imitations  of  Horace's  °  Satires  and  Epistles 
had  recently  appeared,  were  in  every  hand,  and  were 
by  many  readers  thought  superior  to  the  originals. 
What  Pope  had  done  for  Horace,  Johnson  aspired  to 
do  for  Juvenal.  The  enterprise  was  bold,  and  yet 

15  judicious.  For  between  Johnson  and  Juvenal  there 
was  much  in  common,  much  more  certainly  than  be- 
tween Pope  and  Horace. 

Johnson's  London0   appeared  without  his  name  in 
May,  1738.      He  received  only  ten  guineas  for  this 

20  stately  and  vigorous  poem :  but  the  sale  was  rapid, 
and  the  success  complete.  A  second  edition  was 
required  within  a  week.  Those  small  critics  who  are 
always  desirous  to  lower  established  reputations  ran 
about  proclaiming  that  the  anonymous  satirist  was 

25  superior  to  Pope  in  Pope's  own  peculiar  department  of 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  19 

literature.  It  ought  to  be  remembered,  to  the  honour 
of  Pope,  that  he  joined  heartily  in  the  applause  with 
which  the  appearance  of  a  rival  genius  was  welcomed. 
He  made  inquiries  about  the  author  of  London.  Such 
a  man,  he  said,  could  not  long  be  concealed.  The  5 
name  was  soon  discovered ;  and  Pope,  with  great  kind- 
ness, exerted  himself  to  obtain  an  academical  degree 
and  the  mastership  of  a  grammar  school  for  the  poor 
young  poet.  The  attempt  failed0;  and  Johnson  re- 
mained a  bookseller's  hack.  10 

It  does  not  appear  that  these  two  men,  the  most 
eminent  writer  of  the  generation  which  was  going  out, 
and  the  most  eminent  writer  of  the  generation  which 
was  coming  in,  ever  saw  each  other.  They  lived  in 
very  different  circles,  one  surrounded  by  dukes  and  15 
earls,  the  other  by  starving  pamphleteers  and  index 
makers.0  Among  Johnson's  associates  at  this  time 
may  be  mentioned  Boyse,0  who,  when  his  shirts  were 
pledged,  scrawled  Latin  verses  sitting  up  in  bed  with 
his  arms  through  two  holes  in  his  blanket,  who  com-  20 
posed  very  respectable  sacred  poetry  when  he  was 
sober,  and  who  was  at  last  run  over  by  a  hackney 
coach  when  he  was  drunk;  Hoole,0  surnamed  the 
metaphysical  tailor,  who,  instead  of  attending  to  his 
measures,  used  to  trace  geometrical  diagrams  on  the  25 


20  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

board  where  he  sate  cross-legged;  and  the  penitent 
impostor,  George  Psalmanazar,0  who,  after  poring  all 
day,  in  a  humble  lodging,  on  the  folios  of  Jewish 
rabbis  and  Christian  fathers,  indulged  himself  at 
5  night  with  literary  and  theological  conversation  at  an 
alehouse  in  the  city.  But  the  most  remarkable  of  the 
persons  with  whom  at  this  time  Johnson  consorted 
was  Richard  Savage,0  an  earl's  son,  a  shoemaker's 
apprentice,  who  had  seen  life  in  all  its  forms,  who 

10  had  feasted  among  blue  ribands  in  Saint  James's 
Square,  and  had  lain  with  fifty  pounds'  weight  of 
iron  on  his  legs  in  the  condemned  ward  of  Newgate. 
This  man  had,  after  many  vicissitudes  of  fortune,  sunk 
at  last  into  abject  and  hopeless  poverty.  His  pen  had 

15  failed  him.  His  patrons  had  been  taken  away  by 
death,  or  estranged  by  the  riotous  profusion  with 
which  he  squandered  their  bounty,  and  the  ungrate- 
ful insolence  with  which  he  rejected  their  advice. 
He  now  lived  by  begging.  He  dined  on  venison  and 

20  champagne  whenever  he  had  been  so  fortunate  as  to 
borrow  a  guinea.  If  his  questing  had  been  unsuccess- 
ful, he  appeased  the  rage  of  hunger  with  some  scraps 
of  broken  meat,  and  lay  down  to  rest  under  the 
Piazza  of  Covent  Garden0  in  warm  weather,  and,  in 

25  cold  weather,  as  near  as  he  could  get  to  the  furnace 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  21 

of  a  glass  house.  Yet,  in  his  misery,  he  was  still  an 
agreeable  companion.  He  had  an  inexhaustible  store 
of  anecdotes  about  that  gay  and  brilliant  world  from 
which  he  was  now  an  outcast.  He  had  observed  the 
great  men  of  both  parties  in  hours  of  careless  relaxa-  5 
tion,  had  seen  the  leaders  of  opposition  without  the 
mask  of  patriotism,  and  had  heard  the  prime  minister 
roar  with  laughter  and  tell  stories  not  over  decent. 
During  some  months  Savage  lived  in  the  closest 
familiarity  with  Johnson ;  and  then  the  friends  parted,  K» 
not  without  tears.  Johnson  remained  in  London  to 
drudge  for  Cave.  Savage  went  to  the  West  of  Eng- 
land, lived  there  as  he  had  lived  everywhere,  and,  in 
1743,  died,  penniless  and  heart-broken,  in  Bristol 
gaol.  15 

.  Soon  after  his  death,  while  the  public  curiosity  was 
strongly  excited  about  his  extraordinary  character, 
and  his  not  less  extraordinary  adventures,  a  life  of 
him  appeared  widely  different  from  the  catchpenny 
lives  of  eminent  men  which  were  then  a  staple  article  20 
of  manufacture  in  Grub  Street.0  The  style  was  indeed 
deficient  in  ease  and  variety ;  and  the  writer  was  evi- 
dently too  partial  to  the  Latin  element  of  our  lan- 
guage. But  the  little  work,  with  all  its  faults,  was  a 
masterpiece.  No  finer  specimen  of  literary  biography  25 


22  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

existed  in  any  language,  living  or  dead;  and  a  dis- 
cerning critic  might  have  confidently  predicted  that 
the  author  was  destined  to  be  the  founder  of  a  new 
school  of  English  eloquence. 

5  The  Life  of  Savage  was  anonymous ;  but  it  was  well 
known  in  literary  circles  that  Johnson  was  the  writer. 
During  the  three  years  which  followed,  he  produced 
no  important  work ;  but  he  was  not,  and  indeed  could 
not  be,  idle.  The  fame  of  his  abilities  and  learning 

10  continued  to  grow.  Warburton0  pronounced  him  a 
man  of  parts  and  genius ;  and  the  praise  of  Warburton 
was  then  no  light  thing.  Such  was  Johnson's  repu- 
tation that,  in  1747,  several  eminent  booksellers  com- 
bined to  employ  him  in  the  arduous  work  of  preparing 

15  a  Dictionary  of  the  English  Language,  in  two  folip 
volumes.  The  sum  which  they  agreed  to  pay  him 
was  only  fifteen  hundred  guineas;  and  out  of  this 
sum  he  had  to  pay  several  poor  men  of  letters  who 
assisted  him  in  the  humbler  parts  of  his  task. 

20  The  prospectus  of  the  Dictionary  he  addressed  to 
the  Earl  of  Chesterfield.0  Chesterfield  had  long  been 
celebrated  for  the  politeness  of  his  manners,  the  brill- 
iancy of  his  wit,  and  the  delicacy  of  his  taste.  He 
was  acknowledged  to  be  the  finest  speaker  in  the 

25  House  of  Lords.     He  had  recently  governed  Ireland, 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  23 

at  a  momentous  conjuncture,  with  eminent  firmness, 
wisdom,  and  humanity ;  and  he  h*ad  since  become  Sec- 
retary of  State.  He  received  Johnson's  homage0  with 
the  most  winning  affability,  and  requited  it  with  a 
few  guineas,  bestowed  doubtless  in  a  very  graceful  5 
manner,  but  was  by  no  means  desirous  to  see  all  his 
carpets  blackened  with  the  London  mud,  and  his  soups 
and  wines  thrown  to  right  and  left  over  the  gowns  of 
fine  ladies  and  the  waistcoats  of  fine  gentlemen,  by  an 
absent,  awkward  scholar,  who  gave  strange  starts  and  10 
uttered  strange  growls,  who  dressed  like  a  scarecrow, 
and  ate  like  a  cormorant.0  During  some  time  John- 
son continued  to  call  on  his  patron,  but,  after  being 
repeatedly  told  by  the  porter  that  his  lordship  was 
not  at  home,  took  the  hint,  and  ceased  to  present  him-  15 
self  at  the  inhospitable  door.0 

Johnson  had  flattered  himself  that  he  should 
have  completed  his  Dictionary  by  the  end  of  1750; 
but  it  was  not  till  1755  that  he  at  length  gave  his 
huge  volumes  to  the  world.  During  the  seven  years  20 
which  he  passed  in  the  drudgery  of  penning  defini- 
tions and  marking  quotations  for  transcription,  he 
sought  for  relaxation  in  literary  labour  of  a  more 
agreeable  kind.  In  1749  he  published  the  Vanity  of 
Human  Wishes,  an  excellent  imitation  of  the  Tenth  25 


24  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

Satire  of  Juvenal.  It  is  in  truth  not  easy  to  say 
whether  the  palm  belongs  to  the  ancient  or  to  the 
modern  poet.  The  couplets  in  which  the  fall  of  Wol- 
sey°  is  described,  though  lofty  and  sonorous,  are  feeble 
5  when  compared  with  the  wonderful  lines  which  bring 
before  us  all  Rome  in  tumult  on  the  day  of  the  fall  of 
Sejanus,9  the  laurels  on  the  doorposts,  the  white  bull 
stalking  towards  the  Capitol,  the  statues  rolling  down 
from  their  pedestals,  the  flatterers  of  the  disgraced 

10  minister  running  to  see  him  dragged  with  a  hook 
through  the  streets,  and  to  have  a  kick  at  his  carcase 
before  it  is  hurled  into  the  Tiber.  It  must  be  owned 
too  that  in  the  concluding  passage  the  Christian  mor- 
alist has  not  made  the  most  of  his  advantages,  and 

15  has  fallen  decidedly  short  of  the  sublimity  of  his 
Pagan  model.  On  the  other  hand,  Juvenal's  Hanni- 
bal0 must  yield  to  Johnson's  Charles0;  and  Johnson's 
vigorous  and  pathetic  enumeration  of  the  miseries  of 
a  literary  life0  must  be  allowed  to  be  superior  to  Ju- 

20  venal's  lamentation  over  the  fate  of  Demosthenes  and 
Cicero.0 

For  the  copyright  of  the   Vanity  of  Human  Wishes 
Johnson  received  only  fifteen  guineas. 

A  few  days  after  the  publication  of  this  poem,  hjg 

25  tragedy,  begun  many  years  before,  was  brought  on 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  25 

the  stage.  His  pupil,  David  Garrick,  had,  in  1741, 
made  his  appearance  on  a  humble  stage  in  Goodman's 
Fields,0  had  at  once  risen  to  the  first  place  among 
actors,  and  was  now,  after  several  years  of  almost  un- 
interrupted success,  manager  of  Drury  Lane  Theatre.0  5 
The  relation  between  him  and  his  old  preceptor  was 
of  a  very  singular  kind.  They  repelled  each  other 
strongly,  and  yet  attracted  each  other  strongly. 
Nature  had  made  them  of  very  different  clay;  and 
circumstances  had  fully  brought  out  the  natural  pe-  10 
culiarities  of  both.  Sudden  prosperity  had  turned 
Garrick's  head.  Continued  adversity  had  soured 
Johnson's  temper.  Johnson  saw  with  more  envy 
than  became  so  great  a  man  the  villa,  the  plate,  the 
china,  the  Brussels  carpet,  which  the  little  mimic  15 
had  got  by  repeating,  with  grimaces  and  gesticula- 
tions, what  wiser  men  had  written;  and  the  exqui- 
sitely sensitive  vanity  of  Garrick  was  galled  by  the 
thought  that,  while  all  the  rest  of  the  world  was 
applauding  him,  he  could  obtain  from  one  morose  20 
cynic,  whose  opinion  it  was  impossible  to  despise, 
scarcely  any  compliment  not  acidulated  with  scorn. 
Yet  the  two  Lichfield  men  had  so  many  early  recol- 
lections in  common,  and  sympathised  with  each  other 
on  so  many  points  on  which  they  sympathised  with  25 


26  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

nobody  else  in  the  vast  population  of  the  capital,  that, 
though  the  master  was  often  provoked  by  the  monkey- 
like  impertinence  of  the  pupil,  and  the  pupil  by  the 
bearish  rudeness  of  the  master,  they  remained  friends 
5  till  they  were  parted  by  death.  Garrick  now  brought 
Irene  out,  with  alterations  sufficient  to  displease  the 
author,  yet  not  sufficient  to  make  the  piece  pleasing  to 
the  audience.  The  public,  however,  listened,  with  little 
emotion,  but  with  much  civility,  to  five  acts  of  monot- 

10  onous  declamation.  After  nine  representations  the 
play  was  withdrawn.  It  is,  indeed,  altogether  un- 
suited  to  the  stage,  and,  even  when  perused  in  the 
closet,  will  be  found  hardly  worthy  of  the  author. 
He  had  not  the  slightest  notion  of  what  blank  verse 

15  should  be.  A  change  in  the  last  syllable  of  every 
other  line  would  make  the  versification  of  the  Vanity 
of  Human  Wishes  closely  resemble  the  versification  of 
Irene.0  The  poet,  however,  cleared,  by  his  benefit 
nights,0  and  by  the  sale  of  the  copyright  of  his  trag- 

20  edy,  about  three  hundred  pounds,  then  a  great  sum  in 
his  estimation. 

About  a  year  after  the  representation  of  Irene,  he 
began  to  publish  a  series  of  short  essays  on  morals, 
manners,  and  literature.  This  species  of  composition 

25  had  been  brought  into  fashion  by  the  success  of  the 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  27 

Tatler,0  and  by  the  still  more  brilliant  success  of  the 
Spectator.  A  crowd  of  small  writers  had  vainly 
attempted  to  rival  Addison.  The  Lay  Monastery,  the 
Censor,  the  Freethinker,  the  Plain  Dealer,  the  Cham- 
pion, and  other  works  of  the  same  kind,  had  had  their  5 
short  day.  None  of  them  had  obtained  a  permanent 
place  in  our  literature ;  and  they  are  now  to  be  found 
only  in  the  libraries  of  the  curious.  At  length  John- 
son undertook  the  adventure  in  which  so  many  aspi- 
rants had  failed.  In  the  thirty-sixth  year  after  the  10 
appearance  of  the  last  number  of  the  Spectator  ap- 
peared the  first  number  of  the  Rambler.  From  March, 
1750,  to  March,  1752,  this  paper  continued  to  come  out 
every  Tuesday  and  Saturday. 

From  the  first  the  Rambler  was  enthusiastically  ad- 15 
mired  by  a  few  eminent  men.  Richardson,0  when 
only  five  numbers  had  appeared,  pronounced  it  equal, 
if  not  superior  to  the  Spectator.  Young0  and  Hartley0 
expressed  their  approbation  not  less  warmly.  Bubb 
Dodington,0  among  whose  many  faults  indifference  to  20 
the  claims  of  genius  and  learning  cannot  be  reckoned, 
solicited  the  acquaintance  of  the  writer.  In  conse- 
quence probably  of  the  good  offices  of  Dodington,  who 
was  then  the  confidential  adviser  of  Prince  Frederic,0 
two  of  His  Royal  Highness's  gentlemen  carried  a  25 


28  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

gracious  message  to  the  printing  office,  and  ordered 
seven  copies  for  Leicester  House.  But  these  over- 
tures seem  to  have  been  very  coldly  received.  John- 
son had  had  enough  of  the  patronage  of  the  great  to 
5  last  him  all  his  life,  and  was  not  disposed  to  haunt 
any  other  door  as  he  had  haunted  the  door  of 
Chesterfield. 

By  the  public  the  Rambler  was  at  first  very  coldly 
received.     Though  the  price  of  a  number  was  only  two- 

10  pence,  the  sale  did  not  amount  to  five  hundred.  The 
profits  were  therefore  very  small.  But  as  soon  as  the 
flying  leaves  were  collected  and  reprinted  they  became 
popular.  The  author  lived  to  see  thirteen  thousand 
copies  spread  over  England  alone.  Separate  editions 

15  were  published  for  the  Scotch  and  Irish  markets.  A 
large  party  pronounced  the  style  perfect,  so  absolutely 
perfect  that  in  some  essays  it  would  be  impossible  for 
the  writer  himself  to  alter  a  single  word  for  the  better. 
Another  party,  not  less  numerous,  vehemently  accused 

20  him  of  having  corrupted  the  purity  of  the  English 
tongue.0  The  best  critics  admitted  that  his  diction 
was  too  monotonous,  too  obviously  artificial,  and  now 
and  then  turgid  even  to  absurdity.  But  they  did  jus- 
tice to  the  acuteness  of  his  observations  on  morals 

25  and  manners,  to  the  constant  precision  and  frequent 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  29 

brilliancy  of  his  language,  to  the  weighty  and  mag- 
nificent eloquence  of  many  serious  passages,  and 
to  the  solemn  yet  pleasing  humour  of  some  of  the 
lighter  papers.  On  the  question  of  precedence  between 
Addison  and  Johnson,  a  question  which,  seventy  years  5 
ago,  was  much  disputed,  posterity  has  pronounced  a 
decision  from  which  there  is  no  appeal.  Sir  Roger,0 
his  chaplain  and  his  butler,  Will  Wimble  and  Will 
Honeycomb,  the  Yision  of  Mirza,  the  Journal  of  the 
Retired  Citizen,  the  Everlasting  Club,  the  Dunmow  10 
Flitch,  the  Loves  of  Hilpah  and  Shalum,  the  Visit  to 
the  Exchange,  and  the  Visit  to  the  Abbey,  are  known 
to  everybody.  But  many  men  and  women,  even  of 
highly  cultivated  minds,  are  unacquainted  with  Squire 
Bluster0  and  Mrs.  Busy,  Quisquilius  and  Venustulus,  15 
the  Allegory  of  Wit  and  Learning,  the  Chronicle  of  the 
Revolutions  of  a  Garret,  and  the  sad  fate  of  Aningait 
and  A  jut. 

The  last  Rambler  was  written  in  a  sad  and  gloomy 
hour.  Mrs.  Johnson  had  been  given  over  by  the  20 
physicians.  Three  days  later  she  died.  She  left  her 
husband  almost  broken-hearted.  Many  people  had 
been  surprised  to  see  a  man  of  his  genius  and  learn- 
ing stooping  to  every  drudgery,  and  denying  himself 
almost  every  comfort,  for  the  purpose  of  supplying  a  25 


30  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

silly,  affected  old  woman  with  superfluities,  which 
she  accepted  with  but  little  gratitude.0  But  all  his 
affection  had  been  concentrated  on  her.  He  had  neither 
brother  nor  sister,  neither  son  nor  daughter.  To  him 
5  she  was  beautiful  as  the  Gunnings,0  and  witty  as  Lady 
Mary.0  Her  opinion  of  his  writings0  was  more  impor- 
tant to  him  than  the  voice  of  the  pit  of  Drury  Lane 
Theatre,  or  the  judgment  of  the  Monthly  Review.0  The 
chief  support  which  had  sustained  him  through  the 

10  most  arduous  labour  of  his  life  was  the  hope  that  she 
would  enjoy"  the  fame  and  the  profit  which  he  antici- 
pated from  his  Dictionary.  She  was  gone ;  and  in  that 
vast  labyrinth  of  streets,  peopled  by  eight  hundred 
thousand  human  beings,  he  was  alone.  Yet  it  was 

15  necessary  for  him,  to  set  himself,  as  he  expressed  it, 

doggedly  to  work.     After  three  more  laborious  years, 

the  Dictionary  was  at  length  complete. 

y  It  had  been  generally  supposed  that  this  great  work 

would  be  dedicated  to  the  eloquent  and  accomplished 

20  nobleman  to  whom  the  prospectus  had  been  addressed. 
He  well  knew  the  value  of  such  a  compliment;  and 
therefore,  when  the  day  of  publication  drew  near,  he 
exerted  himself  to  soothe,  by  a  show  of  zealous  and  at 
the  same  time  of  delicate  and  judicious  kindness,  the 

25  pride  which  he  had  so  cruelly  wounded.     Since  the 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  31 

Ramblers  had  ceased  to  appear,  the  town  had  been 
entertained  by  a  journal  called  The  World,  to  which 
many  men  of  high  rank  and  fashion  contributed.  In 
two  successive  numbers  of  The  World,  the  Dictionary 
was,  to  use  the  modern  phrase,  puffed  with  wonderful  5 
skill.  The  writings  of  Johnson  were  warmly  praised. 
It  was  proposed  that  he  should  be  invested  with  the 
authority  of  a  Dictator,0  nay,  of  a  Pope,  over  our  lan- 
guage, and  that  his  decisions  about  the  meaning  and 
the  spelling  of  words  should  be  received  as  final.  His  10 
two  folios,  it  was  said,  would  of  course  be  bought  by 
everybody  who  could  afford  to  buy  them.  It  was  soon 
known  that  these  papers  were  written  by  Chesterfield. 
But  the  just  resentment  of  Johnson  was  not  to  be  so 
appeased.  In  a  letter0  written  with  singular  energy  15 
and  dignity  of  thought  and  language,  he  repelled  the 
tardy  advances  of  his  patron.  The  Dictionary  came 
forth  without  a  dedication.  In  the  preface  the  author 
truly  declared  that  he  owed  nothing  to  the  great,  and 
described  the  difficulties  with  which  he  had  been  left  20 
to  struggle  so  forcibly  and  pathetically  that  the  ablest 
and  most  malevolent  of  all  the  enemies  of  his  fame, 
Home  Tooke,0  never  could  read  that  passage  without 
tears. 

The  public,  on  this  occasion,  did  Johnson  full  jus-  25 


32  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

tice,  and  something  more  than  justice.  The  best 
lexicographer  may  well  be  content  if  his  productions 
are  received  by  the  world  with  cold  esteem.  But 
Johnson's  Dictionary  was  hailed  with  an  enthusiasm 

5  such  as  no  similar  work  has  ever  excited.  It  was 
indeed  the  first  dictionary  which  could  be  read  with 
pleasure.  The  definitions  show  so  much  acuteness  of 
thought  and  command  of  language,  and  the  passages 
quoted  from  poets,  divines,  and  philosophers  are  so 

10  skilfully  selected,  that  a  leisure  hour  may  always  be 
very  agreeably  spent  in  turning  over  the  pages.  The 
faults  of  the  book  resolve  themselves,  for  the  most 
part,  into  one  great  fault.  Johnson  was  a  wretched 
etymologist.  He  knew  little  or  nothing  of  any  Teu- 

15  tonic  language  except  English,  which  indeed,  as  he 

wrote  it,  was  scarcely  a  Teutonic  language0 ;  and  thus 

he  was  absolutely  at  the  mercy  of  Junius  and  Skinner.0 

The  Dictionary,  though  it  raised  J'ohnson's  fame, 

added  nothing  to  his  pecuniary  means.     The  fifteen 

20  hundred  guineas  which  the  booksellers  had  agreed  to 
pay  him  had  been  advanced  and  spent  before  the  last 
sheets  issued  from  the  press.  It  is  painful  to  relate 
that,  twice  in  the  course  of  the  year  which  followed 
the  publication  of  this  great  work,  he  was  arrested 

25  and  carried  to  spungiug-houses,  and  that  he  was  twice. 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  33 

indebted  for  his  liberty  to  his  excellent  friend  Richard- 
son. It  was  still  necessary  for  the  man  who  had  been 
formally  saluted  by  the  highest  authority  as  Dictator 
of  the  English  language  to  supply  his  wants  by  con- 
stant toil.  He  abridged  his  Dictionary.  He  proposed  5 
to  bring  out  an  edition  of  Shakspeare  by  subscription ; 
and  many  subscribers  sent  in  their  names  and  laid 
down  their  money;  but  he  soon  found  the  task  so 
little  to  his  taste  that  he  turned  to  more  attractive 
employments.  He  contributed  many  papers  to  a  new  10 
monthly  journal,  which  was  called  the  Literary  Maga- 
zine. Few  of  these  papers  have  much  interest;  but 
among  them  was  the  very  best  thing  that  he  ever 
wrote,  a  masterpiece  both  of  reasoning  and  of  satiri- 
cal pleasantry,  the  review  of  Jenyns's0  Inquiry  into  the  15 
Nature  and  Origin  of  Ecil. 

In  the  spring  of  1758  Johnson  put  forth  the  first 
of  a  series  of  essays,  entitled  the  Idler.  During  two 
years  these  essays  continued  to  appear  weekly.  They 
were  eagerly  read,  widely  circulated,  and,  indeed,  im-  20 
pudently  pirated,  while  they  were  still  in  the  original 
form,  and  had  a  large  sale  when  collected  into  volumes. 
The  Idler  may  be  described  as  a  second  part  of  the 
Rambler,  somewhat  livelier  and  somewhat  weaker  than 
the  first  part.  25 


34  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

While  Johnson  was  busy  with  his  Idlers,  his  mother, 
who  had  accomplished  her  ninetieth  year,  died  at  Lich- 
field.  It  was  long  since  he  had  seen  her ;  but  he  had 
not  failed  to  contribute  largely,  out  of  his  small  means, 
5  to  her  comfort.  In  order  to  defray  the  charges  of  her 
funeral,  and  to  pay  some  debts  which  she  had  left,  he 
wrote  a  little  book  in  a  single  week,  and  sent  off  the 
sheets  to  the  press  without  reading  them  over.  A 
hundred  pounds  were  paid  him  for  the  copyright; 

10  and  the  purchasers  had  great  cause  to  be  pleased  with 
their  bargain  ;  for  the  book  was  Rasselas.0 

The  success  of  Masselas  was  great,  though  such 
ladies  as  Miss  Lydia  Languish0  must  have  been 
grievously  disappointed  when  they  found  that  the  new 

15  volume  from  the  circulating  library  was  little  more 
than  a  dissertation  on  the  author's  favourite  theme, 
the  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes;  that  the  Prince  of 
Abyssinia  was  without  a  mistress,  and  the  princess 
without  a  lover  ;  and  that  the  story  set  the  hero  and 

20  the  heroine  down  exactly  where  it  had  taken  them  up. 
The  style  was  the  subject  of  much  eager  controversy. 
The  Monthly  Review  and  the  Critical  Review0  took 
different  sides.  Many  readers  pronounced  the  writer 
a  pompous  pedant,  who  would  never  use  a  word  of 

25  two  syllables  where  it  was  possible  to  use  a  word  of 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  35 

six,  and  who  could  not  make  a  waiting  woman  relate 
her  adventures  without  balancing  every  noun  with 
another  noun,  and  every  epithet  with  another  epithet. 
Another  party,  not  less  zealous,  cited  with  delight 
numerous  passages  in  which  weighty  meaning  was  5 
expressed  with  accuracy  and  illustrated  with  splen- 
dour. And  both  the  censure  and  the  praise  were 
merited. 

^  About  the  plan  of  Rasselas  little  was  said  by  the 
critics ;  and   yet  the  faults  of  the  plan  might  seem  10 
to  invite   severe   criticism.     Johnson   has   frequently 
blamed   Shakspeare  for  neglecting  the  proprieties  of 
time  and  place,  and  for  ascribing  to  one  age  or  nation 
the  manners  and  opinions  of  another.     Yet  Shakspeare 
has  not  sinned  in  this  way  more  grievously  than  John- 15 
son.     Easselas  and  Imlac,  Nekayah  and  Pekuah,  are 
evidently  meant  to  be  Abyssinians  of  the  eighteenth 
century :  for  the  Europe  which  Imlac  describes  is  the 
Europe  of  the  eighteenth  century  ;  and  the  inmates  of 
the  Happy  Valley0  talk  familiarly  of  that  law  of  gravita-  20 
tion  which  Newton0  discovered,  and  which  was  not  fully 
received  even  at  Cambridge  till  the  eighteenth  century. 
What  a  real  company  of  Abyssinians  would  have  been 
may  be  learned  from  Bruce's  Travels.0     But  Johnson, . 
not  content  with  turning  filthy  savages,  ignorant  of  25 


36  SAMUEL    JOHXSOX 

their  letters,  and  gorged  with  raw  steaks  cut  from 
living  cows,  into  philosophers  as  eloquent  and  en- 
lightened as  himself  or  his  friend  Burke,0  and  into 
ladies  as  highly  accomplished  as  Mrs.  Lennox0  or  Mrs. 

5  Sheridan,0  transferred  the  whole  domestic  system  of 
England  to  Egypt.  Into  a  land  of  harems,  a  land  of 
polygamy,  a  land  where  women  are  married  without 
ever  being  seen,  he  introduced  the  flirtations  and 
jealousies  of  our  ball-rooms.  In  a  land  where  there 

10  is  boundless  liberty  of  divorce,  wedlock  is  described 
as  the  indissoluble  compact.  "  A  youth  and  maiden 
meeting  by  chance,  or  brought  together  by  artifice, 
exchange  glances,  reciprocate  civilities,  go  home,  and 
dream  of  each  other.  Such,"  says  Rasselas,  "  is  the 

15  common  process  of  marriage."  Such  it  may  have 
been,  and  may  still  be,  in  London,  but  assuredly  not  at 
Cairo.  A  writer  who  was  guilty  of  such  improprieties 
had  little  right  to  blame  the  poet  who  made  Hector 
quote  Aristotle,0  and  represented  Julio  Romano  as 

20  flourishing  in  the  days  of  the  oracle  of  Delphi- 

By  such  exertions  as  have  been  described,  Johnson 
supported  himself  till  the  year  1762.  In  that  year  a 
great  change  in  his  circumstances  took  place.  He  had 
from  a  child  been  an  enemy  of  the  reigning  dynasty. 

25  His  Jacobite  prejudices  had  been  exhibited  with  little 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  37 

disguise  both  in  his  works  and  in  his  conversation. 
Even  in  his  massy  and  elaborate  Dictionary  he  had, 
with  a  strange  want  of  taste  and  judgment,  inserted 
bitter  and  contumelious  reflections  on  the  Whig  party. 
The  excise,  which  was  a  favourite  resource  of  Whig  5 
financiers,  he  had  designated  as  a  hateful  tax.  He  had 
railed  against  the  commissioners  of  excise  in  language  so 
coarse0  that  they  had  seriously  thought  of  prosecuting 
him.  He  had  with  difficulty  been  prevented  from  hold- 
ing up  the  Lord  Privy  Seal0  by  name  as  an  example  of  10 
the  meaning  of  the  word  "  renegade."  A  pension  he 
had  defined  as  pay  given  to  a  state  hireling  to  betray 
his  country  ;  a  pensioner  as  a  slave  of  state  hired  by  a 
stipend  to  obey  a  master.  It  seemed  unlikely  that  the 
author  of  these  definitions  would  himself  be  pensioned.  15 
But  that  was  a  time  of  wonders.  George  the  Third 
had  ascended  the  throne  ;  and  had,  in  the  course  of  a 
few  months,  disgusted  many  of  the  old  friends  and 
conciliated  many  of  the  old  enemies  of  his  house. 
The  city  was  becoming  mutinous.0  Oxford  was  becom-  20 
ing  loyal.  Cavendishes  and  Bentincks0  were  murmur- 
ing. Somersets  and  Wyndhams  were  hastening  to  kiss 
hands.  The  head  of  the  treasury  was  now  Lord  Bute,0 
who  was  a  Tory,  and  could  have  no  objection  to  John- 
son's Toryism.  Bute  wished  to  be  thought  a  patron  25 


38  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

of  men  of  letters  ;  and  Johnson  was  one  of  the  most 
eminent  and  one  of  the  most  needy  men  of  letters  in 
Europe.  A  pension  of  three  hundred  a  year  was  gra- 
ciously offered,  and  with  very  little  hesitation  accepted. 
5  This  event  produced  a  change  in  Johnson's  whole 
way  of  life.  For  the  first  time  since  his  boyhood  he 
no  longer  felt  the  daily  goad  urging  him  to  the  daily 
toil.  He  was  at  liberty,  after  thirty  years  of  anxiety 
and  drudgery,  to  indulge  his  constitutional  indolence, 

10  to  lie  in  bed  till  two  in  the  afternoon,  and  to  sit  up 
talking  till  four  in  the  morning,  without  fearing  either 
the  printer's  devil  or  the  sheriff's  officer.0 

One  laborious  task  indeed  he  had  bound  himself  to 
perform.     He  had  received  large  subscriptions  for  his 

15  promised  edition  of  Shakspeare ;  he  had  lived  on  those 
subscriptions  during  some  years :  and  he  could  not 
without  disgrace  omit  to  perform  his  part  of  the  con- 
tract. His  friends  repeatedly  exhorted  him  to  make 
an  effort ;  and  he  repeatedly  resolved  to  do  so.  But, 

20  notwithstanding  their  exhortations  and  his  resolu- 
tions, month  followed  month,  year  followed  year,  and 
nothing  was  done.  He  prayed  fervently  against  his 
idleness ;  he  determined,  as  often  as  he  received  the 
sacrament,  that  he  would  no  longer  doze  away  and 

25  trifle  away  his  time ;  but  the  spell  under  which  he 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  39 

lay  resisted  prayer  and  sacrament.  His  private  notes 
at  this  time  are  made  up  of  self-reproaches.  "My 
indolence,"  he  wrote  on  Easter  Eve  in  1764,  "has 
sunk  into  grosser  sluggishness.  A  kind  of  strange 
oblivion  has  overspread  me,  so  that  I  know  not  what  5 
has  become  of  the  last  year."  Easter,  1765,  came,  and 
found  him  still  in  the  same  state.  "My  time,"  he 
wrote,  "  has  been  unprofitably  spent,  and  seems  as  a 
dream  that  has  left  nothing  behind.  My  memory 
grows  confused,  and  I  know  not  how  the  days  pass  10 
over  me."  Happily  for  his  honour,  the  charm  which 
held  him  captive  was  at  length  broken  by  no  gentle 
or  friendly  hand.  He  had  been  weak  enough  to  pay 
serious  attention  to  a  story  about  a  ghost  which 
haunted  a  house  in  Cock  Lane,0  and  had  actually  gone  15 
himself,  with  some  of  his  friends,  at  one  in  the  morn- 
ing, to  St.  John's  Church,  Clerkenwell,  in  the  hope 
of  receiving  a  communication  from  the  perturbed 
spirit.  But  the  spirit,  though  adjured  with  all  solem- 
nity, remained  obstinately  silent ;  and  it  soon  appeared  20 
that  a  naughty  girl  of  eleven  had  been  amusing  her- 
self by  making  fools  of  so  many  philosophers.  Church- 
ill,0 who,  confident  in  his  powers,  drunk  with  popu- 
larity, and  burning  with  party  spirit,  was  looking 
for  some  man  of  established  fame  and  Tory  politics  25 


40  SAMUEL    JOHySON 

to  insult,  celebrated  the  Cock  Lane  Ghost  in  three 
cantos,  nicknamed  Johnson  Pornposo,  asked  where 
the  book  was  which  had  been  so  long  promised  and 
so  liberally  paid  for,  and  directly  accused  the  great 

5  moralist  of  cheating.  This  terrible  word  proved 
effectual ;  and  in  October,  1765,  appeared,  after  a 
delay  of  nine  years,  the  new  edition  of  Shakspeare. 

This  publication  saved  Johnson's  character  for  hon- 
esty, but  added  nothing  to  the  fame  of  his  abilities  and 

10  learning.  The  preface,  though  it  contains  some  good 
passages,  is  not  in  his  best  manner.  The  most  valu- 
able notes  are  those  in  which  he  had  an  opportunity  of 
showing  how  attentively  he  had  during  many  years 
observed  human  life  and  human  nature.  The  best 

15  specimen  is  the  note  on  the  character  of  Polonius.0 
Nothing  so  good  is  to  be  found  even  in  Wilhelm 
Meister's0  admirable  examination  of  Hamlet.  But 
here  praise  must  end.  It  would  be  difficult  to  name0 
a  more  slovenly,  a  more  worthless  edition  of  any  great 

20  classic.  The  reader  may  turn  over  play  after  play 
without  finding  one  happy  conjectural  emendation,  or 
one  ingenious  and  satisfactory  explanation  of  a  passage 
which  had  baffled  preceding  commentators.  Johnson 
had,  in  his  Prospectus,  told  the  world  that  he  was 

25  peculiarly  fitted  for  the  task  which  he  had  under- 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  41 

taken,  because  he  had,  as  a  lexicographer,  been  under 
the  necessity  of  taking  a  wider  view  of  the  English 
language  than  any  of  his  predecessors.  That  his 
knowledge  of  our  literature  was  extensive  is  indis- 
putable. But,  unfortunately,  he  had  altogether  neg-  5 
lected  that  very  part  of  our  literature  with  which  it  is 
especially  desirable  that  an  editor  of  Shakspeare  should 
be  conversant.  It  is  dangerous  to  assert  a  negative. 
Yet  little  will  be  risked  by  the  assertion,  that  in  the 
two  folio  volumes  of  the  English  Dictionary  there  is  10 
not  a  single  passage  quoted  from  any  dramatist  of  the 
Elizabethan  age,  except  Shakspeare  and  Ben.0  Even 
from  Ben  the  quotations  are  few.  Johnson  might 
easily,  in  a  few  months,  have  made  himself  well  ac- 
quainted with  every  old  play  that  was  extant.  But  15 
it  never  seems  to  have  occurred  to  him  that  this  was 
a  necessary  preparation  for  the  work  which  he  had 
undertaken.  He  would  doubtless  have  admitted  that 
it  would  be  the  height  of  absurdity  in  a  man  who  was 
not  familiar  with  the  works  of  ^Eschylus0  and  Euripides  20 
to  publish  an  edition  of  Sophocles.  Yet  he  ventured 
to  publish  an  edition  of  Shakspeare,  without  having 
ever  in  his  life,  as  far  as  can  be  discovered,  read 
a  single  scene  of  Massinger,  Ford,  Decker,  Webster, 
Marlow,  Beaumont,  or  Fletcher.0  His  detractors  were  25 


42  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

noisy  and  scurrilous.  Those  who  most  loved  and  hon- 
oured him  had  little  to  say  in  praise  of  the  manner  in 
which  he  had  discharged  the  duty  of  a  commentator. 
He  had,  however,  acquitted  himself  of  a  debt  which 
5  had  long  lain  heavy  on  his  conscience,  and  he  sank 
back  into  the  repose  from  which  the  sting  of  satire 
had  roused  him.  He  long  continued  to  live  upon  the 
fame  which  he  had  already  won.  He  was  honoured 
by  the  University  of  Oxford  with  a  Doctors  degree,0 

10  by  the  Koyal  Academy0  with  a  professorship,  and  by 
the  King  with  an  interview,  in  which  his  Majesty  most 
graciously  expressed  a  hope  that  so  excellent  a  writer 
would  not  cease  to  write.  In  the  interval,  however, 
between  1765  and  1775,  Johnson  published  only  two 

15  or  three  political  tracts,  the  longest  of  which  he  could 
have  produced  in  forty-eight  hours,  if  he  had  worked 
as  he  worked  on  the  Life  of  Savage  and  on  Rasselas. 

But,  though  his  pen  was  now  idle,  his  tongue  was 
active.  The  influence  exercised  by  his  conversation, 
20  directly  upon  those  with  whom  he  lived,  and  indi- 
rectly on  the  whole  literary  world,  was  altogether 
without  a  parallel.  His  colloquial  talents  were  indeed 
of  the  highest  order.  He  had  strong  sense,  quick  dis- 
cernment, wit,  humour,  immense  knowledge  of  lit- 

25  erature  and  of  life,  and  an  infinite  store  of  curious 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  43 

anecdotes.      As  respected  style,  lie  spoke  far  better 
than  he  wrote.     Every  sentence  which  dropped  from 
his  lips  was  as  correct  in  structure  as  the  most  nicely       . 
jWlapft^d  pprind  of  the  Rambler.    But  in  his  talk  there 
were  no  pompous  triads,  and  little  more  than  a  fair  5 
proportion  of  words  in  osity  and  atiqn.     All  was  sim- 
plicity,  ease,    and   vigour.      He    uttered    his    short, 
weighty,  and  pointed  sentences  with  a  power  of  voice, 
and  a  justness  and  energy  of  emphasis,  of  which  the 
effect  was  rather  increased  than  diminished  by  the  10 
rollings  of  his  huge  form,  and  by  the  asthmatic  gasp- 
ings  and  puffings  in  which  the  peals  of  his  eloquence 
generally  ended.     Nor  did  the  laziness  which  made 
him  unwilling  to  sit  down  to  his  desk  prevent  him 
from  giving  instruction  or  entertainment  orally.     To  15 
discuss  questions  of  taste,  of  learning,  of  casuistry,  in 
language  so  exact  and  so  forcible  that  it  might  have 
been  printed  without  the  alteration  of  a  word,  was  to 
him  no  exertion,  but  a  pleasure.    He  loved,  as  he  said, 
to  fold  his  legs  and  have  his  talk  out.     He  was  ready  20 
to  bestow  the  overflowings  of  his  full  mind  on  any- 
body who  would  start  a  subject,  on  a  fellow-passenger 
in  a  stage  coach,  or  on  the  person  who  sate  at  the 
same  table  with  him  in  an  eating-house.      But  his 
conversation  was  nowhere  so  brilliant  and  striking  as  25 


44  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

when  he  was  surrounded  by  a  few  friends,  whose 
abilities  and  knowledge  enabled  them,  as  he  once 
expressed  it,  to  send  him  back  every  ball  that  he 
threw.  Some  of  these,  in  1764,  formed  themselves 

5  into  a  club,0  which  gradually  became  a  formidable 
power  in  the  commonwealth  of  letters.  The  verdicts 
pronounced  by  this  conclave  on  new  books  were 
speedily  known  over  all  London,  and  were  sufficient 
to  sell  off  a  whole  edition  in  a  day,  or  to  condemn  the 

10  sheets  to  the  service  of  the  trunk-maker  and  the 
pastry-cook.0  Nor  shall  we  think  this  strange  when 
we  consider  what  great  and  various  talents  and  ac- 
quirements met  in  the  little  fraternity.  Goldsmith0 
was  the  representative  of  poetry  and  light  literature, 

15  Reynolds0  of  the  arts,  Burke  of  political  eloquence 
and  political  philosophy.  There,  too,  were  Gibbon,0 
the  greatest  historian,  and  Jones,0  the  greatest  linguist, 
of  the  age.  Garrick  brought  to  the  meetings  his  in- 
exhaustible pleasantry,  his  incomparable  mimicry,  and 

20  his  consummate  knowledge  of  stage  effect.  Among  the 
most  constant  attendants  were  two  high-born  and  high- 
bred gentlemen,  closely  bound  together  by  friendship, 
but  of  widely  different  characters  and  habits ;  Bennet 
Langton,0  distinguished  by  his  skill  in  Greek  literature, 

25  by  the  orthodoxy  of  his  opinions,  and  by  the  sanctity 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  45 

of  his  life  ;  and  Topham  Beauclerk,0  renowned  for  his 
amours,  his  knowledge  of  the  gay  world,  his  fastidious 
taste,  and  his  sarcastic  wit.    To  predominate  over  such 
a  society  was  not  easy.     Yet  even  over  such  a  society 
Johnson  predominated.    Burke  might  indeed  have  dis-  5 
puted  the  supremacy  to  which  others  were  under  the 
necessity  of  submitting.     But  Burke,  though  not  gen- 
erally a  very  patient  listener,  was  content  to  take  the 
second  part  when  Johnson  was  present ;  and  the  club 
itself,  consisting  of  so  many  eminent  men,  is  to  this  ie 
day  popularly  designated  as  Johnson's  club. 
J  Among  the  members  of  this  celebrated  body  was  one 
to  whom  it  has  owed  the  greater  part  of  its  celebrity,  .. 
yet  who  was  regarded  with  little  respect  by  his  breth-    • 
ren,  and  had  not  without  difficulty  obtained  a  seat  15 
among  them.      This   was   James   Boswell,0  a  young 
Scotch  lawyer,  heir  to  an  honourable  name  and  a  fair 
estate.     That  he  was  a  coxcomb  and  a  bore,  weak, 
vain,  pushing,  curious,  garrulous,  was  obvious  to  all 
who  were  acquainted  with  him.     That  he  could  not  20 
reason,  that  he  had  no  wit,  no  humour,  no  eloquence, 
is  apparent  from  his  writings.      And  yet  his  writings 
are  read  beyond  the  Mississippi,  and  under  the  Southern 
Cross,  and  are  likely  to  be  read  as  long  as  the  English 
exists,  either  as  a  living  or  as  a  dead  language.   Nature  25 


46  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

had  made  him  a  slave  and  au  idolater.  His  mind  re- 
sembled those  creepers  which  the  botanists  call  para- 
sites, and  which  can  subsist  only  by  clinging  round  the 
stems  and  imbibing  the  juices  of  stronger  plants.  He 
5  must  have  fastened  himself  on  somebody.  He  might 
have  fastened  himself  on  Wilkes,0  and  have  become 
the  fiercest  patriot  in  the  Bill  of  Rights  Society.  He  • 
might  have  fastened  himself  on  Whitfield,0  and  have 
become  the  loudest  field  preacher  among  the  Calvinistic 

10  Methodists.  In  a  happy  hour  he  fastened  himself  on 
Johnson.  The  pair  might  seem  ill  matched.  For 
Johnson  had  early  been  prejudiced  against  Boswell's 
country.  To  a  man  of  Johnson's  strong  understanding 
and  irritable  temper,  the  silly  egotism  and  adulation 

15  of  Boswell  must  have  been  as  teasing  as  the  constant 
buzz  of  a  fly.  Johnson  hated  to  be  questioned ;  and 
Boswell  was  eternally  catechising  him  on  all  kinds  of 
subjects,  and  sometimes  propounded  such  questions  as, 
"  What  would  you  do,  sir,  if  you  were  locked  up  in  a 

20  tower  with  a  baby  ?  "  Johnson  was  a  water  drinker0 
and  Boswell  was  a  winebibber,  and  indeed  little  better 
than  a  habitual  sot.  It  was  impossible  that  there 
should  be  perfect  harmony  between  two  such  compan- 
ions. Indeed,  the  great  man  was  sometimes  provoked 

25  into  fits  of  passion,  in  which  he  said  things  which  the 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  47 

small  man,  during  a  few  hours,  seriously  resented. 
Every  quarrel,  however,  was  soon  made  up.  During 
twenty  years  the  disciple  continued  to  worship  the 
master :  the  master  continued  to  scold  the  disciple,  to 
sneer  at  him,  and  to  love  him.  The  two  friends  ordi-  5 
narily  resided  at  a  great  distance  from  each  other. 
Boswell  practised  in  the  Parliament  House  of  Edin- 
burgh, and  could  pay  only  occasional  visits  to  London. 
During  these  visits  his  chief  business  was  to  watch 
Johnson,  to  discover  all  Johnson's  habits,  to  turn  the  10 
conversation  to  subjects  about  which  Johnson  was 
likely  to  say  something  remarkable,  and  to  fill  quarto 
note  books  with  minutes  of  what  Johnson  had  said. 
In  this  way  were  gathered  the  materials,  out  of  which 
was  afterwards  constructed  the  most  interesting  bio- 15 
graphical  work  in  the  world. 

Soon  after  the  club  began  to  exist,  Johnson  formed 
a  connection  less  important  indeed  to  his  fame,  but 
much  more  important  to  his  happiness,  than  his  con- 
nection with  Boswell.  Henry  Thrale,  one  of  the  most  20 
opulent  brewers  in  the  kingdom,  a  man  of  sound  and 
cultivated  understanding,  rigid  principles,  and  liberal 
spirit,  was  married  to  one  of  those  clever,  kind-hearted, 
engaging,  vain,  pert,  young  women,  who  are  perpetually 
doing  or  saying  what  is  not  exactly  right,  but  who,  do  25 


48  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

or  say  what  they  may,  are  always  agreeable.  In  1765 
the  Thrales0  became  acquainted  with  Johnson,  and  the 
acquaintance  ripened  fast  into  friendship.  They  were 
astonished  and  delighted  by  the  brilliancy  of  his  con- 
5  versation.  They  were  flattered  by  finding  that  a  man 
so  widely  celebrated  preferred  their  house  to  any  other 
in  London.  Even  the  peculiarities  which  seemed  to 
unfit  him  for  civilised  society,  his  gesticulations,  his 
rollings,  his  puffings,  his  mutterings,  the  strange  way 

10  in  which  he  put  on  his  clothes,  the  ravenous  eagerness 
with  which  he  devoured  his  dinner,  his  fits  of  melan- 
choly, his  fits  of  anger,  his  frequent  rudeness,  his  occa- 
sional ferocity,  increased  the  interest  which  his  new 
associates  took  in  him.  For  these  things  were  the 

15  cruel  marks  left  behind  by  a  life  which  had  been  one 
long  conflict  with  disease  and  with  adversity.  In  a 
vulgar  hack  writer  such  oddities  would  have  excited 
only  disgust.  But  in  a  man  of  genius,  learning,  and 
virtue,  their  effect  was  to  add  pity  to  admiration  and 

20  esteem.     Johnson  soon  had  an  apartment  at  the  brew- 
ery in  Southwark,0  and  a  still  more  pleasant  apartment, 
at  the  villa  of  his  friends  on  Streatham  Common.0     A~ 
large  part  of  every  year  he  passed  in  those  abodes, 
abodes  which  must  have  seemed  magnificent  and  luxu- 

25  rious  indeed,  when  compared  with  the  dens  in  which 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  49 

he  had  generally  been  lodged.     But  his  chief  pleasures 
were  derived  from  what  the  astronomer  of  his  Abys- 
sinian tale  called  "the  endearing  .elegance  of  female 
friendship."     Mrs.  Thrale  rallied  him,  soothed  him, 
coaxed  him,  and,  if  she  sometimes  provoked  him  by  5 
her  flippancy,  made  ample  amends  by  listening  to  his 
reproofs  with  angelic  sweetness  of  temper.     When  he 
was  diseased  in  body  and  in  mind,  she  was  the  most 
tender  of  nurses.     No  comfort  that  wealth  could  pur- 
chase, no  contrivance  that  womanly  ingenuity,  set  to  10 
work  by  womanly  compassion,  could  devise  was  want- 
ing to  his  sick-room.     He  requited  her  kindness  by  an 
affection  pure  as  the  affection  of  a  father,  yet  delicately 
tinged  with  a  gallantry,  which,  though  awkward,  must 
have  been  more  flattering  than  the  attentions  of  a  15 
crowd  of  the  fools  who  gloried  in  the  names,  now 
obsolete,  of  Buck  and  Macaroni.     It  should  seem  that 
a  full  half   of  Johnson's  life,  during  about  sixteen 
years,  was  passed  under  the  roof  of  the  Thrales.     He 
accompanied  the  family  sometimes  to  Bath,0  and  some-  20 
times  to  Brighton,  once  to  Wales,  and  once  to  Paris. 
But  he  had  at  the  same  time  a  house  in  one  of  the 
narrow  and  gloomy  courts  on  the  north  of  Fleet  Street.0  • 
In  the  garrets  was  his  library,  a  large  and  miscellane- 
ous collection  of  books,  falling  to  pieces  and  begrimed  25 


50  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

with  dust.  On  a  lower  floor  he  sometimes,  but  very 
rarely,  regaled  a  friend  with  a  plain  dinner,  a  veal  pie, 
or  a  leg  of  lamb  and  spinage,  and  a  rice  pudding.  Xor 
was  the  dwelling  uninhabited  during  his  long  absences. 
5  It  was  the  home  of  the  most  extraordinary  assemblage 
of  inmates  that  ever  was  brought  together.  At  the 
head  of  the  establishment  Johnson  had  placed  an  old 
lady  named  Williams,0  whose  chief  recommendations 
were  her  blindness  and  her  poverty.  But,  in  spite  of 

10  her  murmurs  and  reproaches,  he  gave  an  asylum  to 
another  lady  who  was  as  poor  as  herself,  Mrs.  Des- 
moulins,  whose  family  he  had  known  many  years 
before  in  Staffordshire.  Room  was  found  for  the 
daughter  of  Mrs.  Desmoulins,  and  for  another  desti- 

JS  tute  damsel,  who  was  generally  addressed  as  Miss 
Carmichael,  but  whom  her  generous  host  called  Polly. 
An  old  quack  doctor  named  Levett,  who  bled  and 
dosed  coal  heavers  and  hackney  coachmen,  and  re- 
ceived for  fees  crusts  of  bread,  bits  of  bacon,  glasses  of 

20  gin,  and  sometimes  a  little  copper,  completed  this 
strange  menagerie.  All  these  poor  creatures  were  at 
constant  war  with  each  other,  and  with  Johnson's 
negro  servant  Frank.  Sometimes,  indeed,  they  trans- 
ferred their  hostilities  from  the  servant  to  the  master, 

25  complained  that  a  better  table  was  not  kept  for  them, 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  51 

and  railed  or  maundered  till  their  benefactor  was  glad 
to  make  his  escape  to  Streatham,  or  to  the  Mitre 
Tavern.0  And  yet  he,  who  was  generally  the  haughti- 
est and  most  irritable  of  mankind,  who  was  but  too 
prompt  to  resent  anything  which  looked  like  a  slight  5 
on  the  part  of  a  purse-proud  bookseller,  or  of  a  noble 
and  powerful  patron,  bore  patiently  from  mendicants, 
who,  but  for  his  bounty,  must  have  gone  to  the  work- 
house, insults  more  provoking  than  those  for  which  he 
had  knocked  down  Osborne  and  bidden  defiance  to  ic 
Chesterfield.  Year  after  year  Mrs.  Williams  and  Mrs. 
Desmoulins,  Polly  and  Levett  continued  to  torment 
him  and  to  live  upon  him.0 

The  course  of  life  which  has  been  described  was 
interrupted  in  Johnson's  sixty-fourth  year  by  an  irn-  15 
portant  event.  He  had  early  read  an  account  of  the 
Hebrides,  and  had  been  much  interested  by  learning 
that  there  was  so  near  him  a  land  peopled  by  a  race 
which  was  still  as  rude  and  simple  as  in  the  middle 
ages.  A  wish  to  become  intimately  acquainted  with  20 
a  state  of  society  so  utterly  unlike  all  that  he  had 
ever  seen  frequently  crossed  his  mind.  But  it  is  not 
probable  that  his  curiosity  would  have  overcome  his 
habitual  sluggishness,  and  his  love  of  the  smoke,  the 
mud,  and  the  cries  of  London,  had  not  Boswell  impor-  25 


52  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

tuned  him  to  attempt  the  adventure,  and  offered  to 
be  his  squire.  At  length,  in  August,  1773,  Johnson 
crossed  the  Highland  line,  and  plunged  courageously 
into  what  was  then  considered,  by  most  Englishmen, 
5  as  a  dreary  and  perilous  wilderness.  After  wandering 
about  two  months  through  the  Celtic  region,0  some- 
times in  rude  boats  which  did  not  protect  him  from 
the  rain,  and  sometimes  on  small  shaggy  poneys 
which  could  hardly  bear  his  weight,  he  returned  to 

10  his  old  haunts  with  a  mind  full  of  new  images  and 
new  theories.  During  the  following  year  he  employed 
himself  in  recording  his  adventures.  About  the  be- 
ginning of  1775,  his  Journey  to  the  Hebrides  was 
published,  and  was,  during  some  weeks,  the  chief 

15  subject  of  conversation  in  all  circles  in  which  any 
attention  was  paid  to  literature.  The  book  is  still 
read  with  pleasure.  '  The  narrative  is  entertaining ; 
the  speculations,  whether  sound  or  unsound,  are 
always  ingenious ;  and  the  style,  though  too  stiff 

20  and  pompous,  is  somewhat  easier  and  more  graceful 
than  that  of  his  early  writings.  His  prejudice  against 
the  Scotch  had  at  length  become  little  more  than 
matter  of  jest ;  and  whatever  remained  of  the  old 
feeling  had  been  effectually  removed  by  the  kind 

25  and  respectful  hospitality  with  which   he  had  been 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  53 

received  in  every  part  of  Scotland.  It  was,  of  course, 
not  to  be  expected  that  an  Oxonian  Tory  should 
praise  the  Presbyterian  polity  and  ritual,0  or  that 
an  eye  accustomed  to  the  hedgerows  and  parks  of 
England  should  not  be  struck  by  the  bareness  of  5 
Berwickshire  and  East  Lothian.0  But  even  in  censure 
Johnson's  tone  is  not  unfriendly.  The  most  enlight- 
ened Scotchmen,  with  Lord  Mansfield  8  at  their  head, 
were  well  pleased.  But  some  foolish  and  ignorant 
Scotchmen  were  moved  to  anger  by  a  little  unpal- 10 
atable  truth  which  was  mingled  with  much  eulogy, 
and  assailed  him  whom  they  chose  to  consider  as  the 
enemy  of  their  country  with  libels  much  more  dis- 
honourable to  their  country  than  anything  that  he 
had  ever  said  or  written.  They  published  paragraphs  15 
in  the  newspapers,  articles  in  the  magazines,  sixpenny 
pamphlets,  five-shilling  books.  One  scribbler  abused 
Johnson  for  being  blear-eyed ;  another  for  being  a 
pensioner:  a  third  informed  the  world  that  one  of 
the  Doctor's  uncles  had  been  convicted  of  felony  in  20 
Scotland,  and  had  found  that  there  was  in  that  coun- 
try one  tree  capable  of  supporting  the  weight  of  an 
Englishman.  Macpherson,0  whose  Fingal  had  been 
proved  in  the  Journey  to  be  an  impudent  forgery, 
threatened  to  take  vengeance  with  a  cane.  The  only  25 


54  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

effect  of  this  threat  was  that  Johnson  reiterated  the 
charge  of  forgery0  in  the  most  contemptuous  terms, 
and  walked  about,  during  some  time,  with  a  cudgel, 
which,  if  the  impostor  had  not  been  too  wise  to  en- 

5  counter  it,  would  assuredly  have  descended  upon  him, 
to  borrow  the  sublime  language  of  his  own  epic  poem, 
'•'  like  a  hammer  on  the  red  son  of  the  furnace." 
(^       Of  other  assailants  Johnson  took  no  notice  what- 
ever.    He  had  early  resolved  never  to  be  drawn  into 

10  controversy ;  and  he  adhered  to  his  resolution  with 
a  steadfastness  which  is  the  more  extraordinary, 
because  he  was,  both  intellectually  and  morally,  of 
the  stuff  of  which  controversialists  are  made.  In 
conversation,  he  was  a  singularly  eager,  acute,  and 

15  pertinacious  disputant.  When  at  a  loss  for  good 
reasons,  he  had  recourse  to  sophistry ;  and  when 
heated  by  altercation,  he  made  unsparing  use  of 
sarcasm  and  invective.  But  when  he  took  his  pen 
in  his  hand,  his  whole  character  seemed  to  be  changed. 

20  A  hundred  bad  writers  misrepresented  him  and  re- 
viled him  ;  but  not  one  of  the  hundred  could  boast 
of  having  been  thought  by  him  worthy  of  a  refuta- 
tion, or  even  of  a  retort.  The  Kenricks,  Campbells, 
MacOsicols,  and  Hendersons0  did  their  best  to  annoy 

25  him,  in  the  hope  that  he  would  give  them  importance 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  55 

by  answering  them.  But  the  reader  will  in  vain 
search  his  works  for  any  allusion  to  Kenrick  or 
Campbell,  to  MacNicol  or  Henderson.  One  Scotch- 
man, bent  on  vindicating  the  fame  of  Scotch  learn- 
ing, defied  him  to  the  combat  in  a  detestable  Latin  5 
hexameter. 

"  Maxime,  si  tu  vis,  cupio  contenders  tecum."0 

But  Johnson  took  no  notice  of  the  challenge.     He 
had  learned,  both  from  his  own  observation  and  from 
literary  history,  in  which  he  was  deeply  read,  that  the  10 
place  of  books  in  the  public  estimation  is  fixed,  not 
by  what  is  written  about  them,  but  by  what  is  written 
in  them ;  and  that  an  author  whose  works  are  likely 
to  live  is  very  unwise  if  he  stoops  to  wrangle  with 
detractors  whose  works  are  certain  to  die.     He  always  15 
maintained  that  fame  was  a  shuttlecock  which  could 
be   kept  up   only  by   being  beaten  back,  as  well  as 
beaten  forward,  and  which  would  soon  fall  if  there 
were  only  one  battledore.     No  saying  was  oftener  in 
his  mouth  than  that  fine  apophthegm  of  Bentley,0  that  20 
no  man  was  ever  written  down  but  by  himself. 

Unhappily,  a  few  months  after  the  appearance  of 
the  Journey  to  the  Hebrides,  Johnson  did  what  none 
of  his  envious  assailants  could  have  done,  and  to  a 


56  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

certain  extent  succeeded  in  writing  himself  down. 
The  disputes  between  England  and  her  American 
colonies  had  reached  a  point  at  which  no  amicable 
adjustment  was  possible.  Civil  war  was  evidently 
5  impending ;  and  the  ministers  seem  to  have  thought 
that  the  eloquence  of  Johnson  might  with  advantage 
be  employed  to  inflame  the  nation  against  the  opposi- 
tion here,  and  against  the  rebels  beyond  the  Atlantic. 
He  had  already  written  two  or  three  tracts  in  defence 

10  of  the  foreign  and  domestic  policy  of  the  government ; 
and  those  tracts,  though  hardly  worthy  of  him,  were 
much  superior  to  the  crowd  of  pamphlets  which  lay 
on  the  counters  of  Almon  and  Stockdale.  But  his 
Taxation  no  Tyranny0  was  a  pitiable  failure.  The 

15  very  title  was  a  silly  phrase,  which  can  have  been 
recommended  to  his  choice  by  nothing  but  a  jing- 
ling alliteration  which  he  ought  to  have  despised. 
The  arguments  were  such  as  boys  use  in  debating 
societies.  The  pleasantry  was  as  awkward  as  the 

20  gambols  of  a  hippopotamus.  Even  Boswell  was  forced 
to  own  that,  in  this  unfortunate  piece,  he  could  detect 
no  trace  of  his  master's  powers.  The  general  opinion 
was  that  the  strong  faculties  which  had  produced 
the  Dictionary  and  the  Rambler  were  beginning  to 

25  feel  the  effect  of  time  and  of  disease,  and  that  the 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  57 

old  mail  would  best  consult  his  credit  by  writing  no 
more. 

V  But  this  was  a  great  mistake.     Johnson  had  failed, 
nob  because  his  mind  was  less  vigorous  than  when  he 
wrote  Rasselas  in  the  evenings  of  a  week,  but  because  5 
he  had  foolishly  chosen,  or  suffered  others  to  choose 
for  him,  a  subject  such  as  he  would  at  no  time  have 
been  competent  to  treat.     He  was  in  no  sense  a  states- 
man.    He  never  willingly  read  or  thought  or  talked 
about  affairs  of  state.     He  loved  biography,  literary  10 
history,  the  history  of  manners ;  but  political  history 
was  positively  distasteful  to  him.      The  question  at 
issue  between  the  colonies  and  the  mother  country 
was  a  question  about  which  he  had  really  nothing  to 
say.     He  failed,  therefore,  as  the  greatest  men  must  15 
fail  when  they  attempt  to  do  that  for  which  they  are 
unfit ;  as  Burke  would  have  failed  if  Burke  had  tried 
to  write  comedies  like  those  of  Sheridan0 ;  as  Reynolds 
would  have  failed  if  Reynolds  had  tried  to  paint  land- 
scapes like  those  of  Wilson.0     Happily,  Johnson  soon  20 
had  an  opportunity  of  proving  most  signally  that  his 
failure  was  not  to  be  ascribed  to  intellectual  decay. 

On  Easter  Eve,  1777,  some  persons,  deputed  by  a 
meeting  which  consisted  of  forty  of  the  first  book- 
sellers in  London,  called  upon  him.  Though  he  had  25 


58  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

some  scruples  about  doing  business  at  that  season,  he 
received  his  visitors  with  much  civility.  They  came 
to  inform  him  that  a  new  edition  of  the  English  poets, 
from  Cowley0  downwards,  was  in  contemplation,  and  to 
5  ask  him  to  furnish  short  biographical  prefaces.  He 
readily  undertook  the  task,  a  task  for  which  he  was 
pre-eminently  qualified.  His  knowledge  of  the  literary 
history  of  England  since  the  Restoration0  was  unri- 
valled. That  knowledge  he  had  derived  partly  from 

10  books,  and  partly  from  sources  which  had  long  been 
closed ;  from  old  Grub  Street  traditions ;  from  the 
talk  of  forgotten  poetasters  and  pamphleteers  who 
had  long  been  lying  in  parish  vaults ;  from  the  recol- 
lections of  such  men  as  Gilbert  Walmesley,  who  had 

15  conversed  with  the  wits  of  Button0 ;  Gibber,0  who  had 
mutilated  the  plays  of  two  generations  of  dramatists; 
Orrery,0  who  had  been  admitted  to  the  society  of  Swift0 ; 
and  Savage,  who  had  rendered  services  of  no  very  hon- 
ourable kind  to  Pope.0  The  biographer  therefore  sate 

20  down  to  his  task  with  a  mind  full  of  matter.  He  had 
at  first  intended  to  give  only  a  paragraph  to  every 
minor  poet,  and  only  four  or  five  pages  to  the  greatest 
name.  But  the  flood  of  anecdote  and  criticism  over- 
flowed the  narrow  channel.  The  work,  which  was 

35  originally  meant  to   consist    only   of  a  few  sheets, 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  59 

swelled  into  ten  volumes,  small  volumes,  it  is  true, 
and  not  closely  printed.  The  first  four  appeared  in 
177^.  the  remaining  six  in  1781. 

The  Lives  of  the  Poets  are,  on  the  whole,  the  best  of 
Johnson's  works.     The  narratives  are  as  entertaining  5 
as   any  novel.     The   remarks  on  life  and  on  human 
nature   are   eminently   shrewd   and    profound.      The 
criticisms  are  often  excellent,  and,  even  when  grossly 
and  provokingly  unjust,  well   deserve  to  be  studied. 
For,  however  erroneous  they  may  be,  they  are  never  xc 
silly.     They  are  the  judgments  of  a  mind  trammelled 
by  prejudice  and  deficient  in  sensibility,  but  vigorous 
and  acute.     They  therefore  generally  contain  a  por- 
tion of  valuable  truth  which  deserves  to  be  separated 
from  the  alloy ;  and,  at  the  very  worst,  they  mean  15 
something,  a  praise  to  which  much  of  what  is  called 
criticism  in  our  time  has  no  pretensions. 
-  Savage's  Life  Johnson  reprinted  nearly  as  it  had 
appeared  in  1744.     Whoever,  after  reading  that  life, 
will  turn  to  the  other  lives  will  be  struck  by  the  dif-  20 
ference  of  style.     Since  Johnson  had  been  at  ease  in 
his  circumstances  he  had  written  little  and  had  talked 
much.     When,  therefore,  he,  after  the  lapse  of  years, 
resumed  his  pen,  the  mannerism  which  he  had  con- 
tracted while  he  was  in  the  constant  habit  of  elaborate  25 


60  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

composition  was  less  perceptible  than  formerly;  and 
his  diction  frequently  had  a  colloquial  ease  which  it 
had  formerly  wanted.  The  improvement  may  be  dis- 
cerned by  a  skilful  critic  in  the  Journey  to  the  Heb- 

5  rides,  and  in  the  Lives  of  the  Poets  is  so  obvious  that  it 

cannot  escape  the  notice  of  the  most  careless  reader. 
vb^J^SlPPS  ^e  Lives  the  best  are  perhaps  those  of  Cow- 
ley,  Dryden,0  and  Pope.     The  very  worst  is,  beyond 
all  doubt,  that  of  Gray.0 

10  This  great  work  at  once  became  popular.  There 
was,  indeed,  much  just  and  much  unjust  censure :  but 
even  those  who  were  loudest  in  blame  were  attracted 
by  the  book  in  spite  of  themselves.  Malone0  com- 
puted the  gains  of  the  publishers  at  five  or  six 

15  thousand  pounds.  But  the  writer  was  very  poorly 
remunerated.  Intending  at  first  to  write  very  short 
prefaces,  he  had  stipulated  for  only  two  hundred 
guineas.  The  booksellers,  when  they  saw  how  far 
his  performance  had  surpassed  his  promise,  added 

20  only  another  hundred.  Indeed,  Johnson,  though  he 
did  not  despise,  or  affect  to  despise  money,  and  though 
his  strong  sense  and  long  experience  ought  to  have 
qualified  him  to  protect  his  o\vn  interests,  seems  to 
have  been  singularly  unskilful  and  unlucky  in  his 

25  literary  bargains.     He  was  generally  reputed  the  first 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  61 

English  writer  of  his  time.  Yet  several  writers  of  his 
time  sold  their  copyrights  for  sums  such  as  he  never 
ventured  to  ask.  To  give  a  single  instance,  Robertson0 
received  four  thousand  five  hundred  pounds  for  the 
History  of  Charles  V.  ;  and  it  is  no  disrespect  to  the  5 
memory  of  Robertson  to  say  that  the  History  of 
Charles  V.  is  both  a  less  valuable  and  a  less  amusing 
book  than  the  Lives  of  the  Poets. 

Johnson  was  now  in  his  seventy-second  year.  The 
infirmities  of  age  were  coming  fast  upon  him.  That  10 
inevitable  event  of  which  he  never  thought  without 
horror  was  brought  near  to  him ;  and  his  whole  life 
was  darkened  by  the  shadow  of  death.  He  had  often 
to  pay  the  cruel  price  of  longevity.  Every  year  he 
lost  what  could  never  be  replaced.  The  strange  de- 15 
pendents  to  whom  he  had  given  shelter,  and  to  whom, 
in  spite  of  their  faults,  he  was  strongly  attached  by 
habit,  dropped  off  one  by  one ;  and,  in  the  silence  of 
his  home,  he  regretted  even  the  noise  of  their  scold- 
ing matches.  The  kind  and  generous  Thrale  was  no  20 
more;  and  it  would  have  been  well  if  his  wife  had 
been  laid  beside  him.  But  she  survived  to  be  the 
laughing-stock  of  those  who  had  envied  her,  and  to 
draw  from  the  eyes  of  the  old  man  who  had  loved  her 
beyond  anything  in  the  world,  tears  far  more  bitter  25 


62  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

than  he  would  have  shed  over  her  grave.     With  some 
estimable,  and  many  agreeable  qualities,  she  was  not 
made  to  be  independent.     The  control  of  a  mind  more 
steadfast  than  her  own  was  necessary  to  her  respecta- 
5  bility.     While  she  was  restrained  by  her  husband,  a 
man  of  sense  and  firmness,  indulgent  to  her  taste  in 
trifles,  but  always  the  undisputed  master  of  his  house, 
her  worst  offences  had  been  impertinent  jokes,  white 
lies,  and  short  fits  of  pettishness   ending  in   sunny 
10  good  humour.     But  he  was  gone ;  and  she  was  left  an 
opulent  widow  of  forty,  with  strong  sensibility^  volatile 
fancy,  and  slender  judgment.     She  soon  fell  in  loTe 
with  a  music-master  from  Brescia,0  in  whom  nobody 
but  herself  could  discover  anything  to  admire.     Her 
15  pride,  and    perhaps    some   better   feelings,  struggled 
hard  against  this  degrading  passion.    Biit  the  struggle 
irritated  her  nerves,  soured  her  temper,  and  at  length 
.  endangered  her  health.    Conscious  that  her  choice  was 
one  which   Johnson    could  not  approve,  she   became 
20  desirous  to  escape  from  his  inspection.     Her  manner 
towards  him  changed.     She  was  sometimes  cold  and 
sometimes  petulant.    She  did  not  conceal  her  joy  when 
he  left  Streatham :  she  never  pressed  him  to  return ; 
and,  if  he  came  unbidden,  she  received  him  in  a  man- 
as  ner  which  convinced  him  that  he  was  no  longer  a  wel- 


SAMUEL    JOHXSOir  63 


come  guest.  He  took  the  very  intelligible  hints  which 
she  gave.  He  read,  for  the  last  time,  a  chapter  of  the 
Greek  Testament  in  the  library  which  had  been  formed 
by  himself.  In  a  solemn  and  tender  prayer  he  com- 
mended the  house  and  its  inmates  to  the  Divine  pro-  5 
tection,  and,  with  emotions  which  choked  his  voice  and 
convulsed  his  powerful  frame,  left  for  ever  that  beloved 
home  for  the  gloomy  and  desolate  house  behind  Fleet 
Street,  where  the  few  and  evil  days  which  still  re- 
mained to  him  were  to  run  out.  Here,  in  June,  1783,  JD 
he  had  a  paralytic  stroke,  from  which,  however,  he 
recovered,  and  which  does  not  appear  to  have  at  all 
impaired  his  intellectual  faculties.  But  other  mala- 
dies came  thick  upon  him.  His  asthma  tormented 
him  day  and  night.  Dropsical  symptoms  made  their  15 
appearance.  While  sinking  under  a  complication  of 
diseases,  he  heard  that  the  woman,  whose  friendship 
had  been  the  chief  happiness  of  sixteen  years  of  his 
life,  had  married  an  Italian  fiddler;  that  all  London 
was  crying  shame  upon  her  ;  and  that  the  newspapers  20 
and  magazines  were  filled  with  allusions  to  the  Ephe- 
sian  matron0  and  the  two  pictures0  in  Hamlet.  He 
vehemently  said  that  he  would  try  to  forget  her 
existence.  He  never  uttered  her  name.  Every 
memorial  of  her  which  met  his  eye  he  fluug  into  the  25 


64  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

fire.  She  meanwhile  fled  from  the  laughter  and  the 
hisses  of  her  countrymen  and  countrywomen  to  a  land 
where  she  was  \unknown,  hastened  across  Mont  Cenis, 
and  learned,  while  passing  a  merry  Christmas  of  con- 
5  certs  and  lemonade  parties  at  Milan,  that  the  great 
man  with  whose  name  hers  is  inseparably  associated 
had  ceased  to  exist. 

He  had,  in  spite  of  much  mental  and  much  bodily 
affliction,  clung  vehemently  to  life.     The  feeling  de- 

10  scribed0  in  that  fine  but  gloomy  paper  which  closes 
the  series  of  his  Idlers  seemed  to  grow  stronger  in  him 
as  his  last  hour  drew  near.  He  fancied  that  he  should 
be  able  to  draw  his  breath  more  easily  in  a  southern 
climate,  and  would  probably  have  set  out  for  Rome 

15  and  Naples,  but  for  his  fear  of  the  expense  of  the 
journey.  That  expense,  indeed,  he  had  the  means  of 
defraying;  for  he  had  laid  up  about  two  thousand 
pounds,  the  fruit  of  labours  which  had  made  the 
fortune  of  several  publishers.  But  he  was  unwilling 

20  to  break  in  upon  this  hoard,  and  he  seems  to  have 
wished  even  to  keep  its  existence  a  secret.  Some  of 
his  friends  hoped  that  the  government  might  be  in- 
duced to  increase  his  pension  to  six  hundred  pounds 
a  year,  but  this  hope  was  disappointed,  and  he  re- 

25  solved  to   stand  one    English   winter    more.      That 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  65 

winter  was  his  last.  His  legs  grew  weaker;  his 
breath  grew  shorter ;  the  fatal  water  gathered  fast,  in 
spite  of  incisions  which  he,  courageous  against  pain, 
but  timid  against  death,  urged  his  surgeons  to  make 
deeper  and  deeper.  Though  the  tender  care  which  5 
had  mitigated  his  sufferings  during  months  of  sickness 
at  Streatham  was  withdrawn,  he  was  not  left  desolate. 
The  ablest  physicians  and  surgeons  attended  him,  and 
refused  to  accept  fees  from  him.  Burke  parted  from 
him  with  deep  emotion.  Windham0  sate  much  in  the  10 
sick-room,  arranged  the  pillows,  and  sent  his  own 
servant  to  watch  at  night  by  the  bed.  Frances  Bur- 
ney,°  whom  the  old  man  had  cherished  with  fatherly 
kindness,  stood  weeping  at  the  door;  while  Langton, 
whose  piety  eminently  qualified  him  to  be  an  adviser  15 
and  comforter  at  such  a  time,  received  the  last  press- 
ure of  his  friend's  hand  within.  When  at  length  the 
moment,  dreaded  through  so  many  years,  came  close, 
the  dark  cloud  passed  away  from  Johnson's  mind. 
His  temper  became  unusually  patient  and  gentle ;  he  20 
ceased  to  think  with  terror  of  death,  and  of  that 
which  lies  beyond  death ;  and  he  spoke  much  of  the 
mercy  of  God,  and  of  the  propitiation  of  Christ.  In 
this  serene  frame  of  mind  he  died  on  the  13th  of 
December,  1784.  He  was  laid,  a  week  later,  in  25 


66  SAMUEL    JOHNSON 

Westminster  Abbey,  among  the  eminent  men  of 
whom  he  had  been  the  historian,  —  Cowley  and 
Denham,0  Dryden  and  Congreve,0  Gay,0  Prior,0  and 
Addison. 

5  Since  his  death  the  popularity  of  his  works  —  the 
Lives  of  the  Poets,  and,  perhaps,  the  Vanity  of  Human 
Wishes,  excepted  —  has  greatly  diminished.  His 
Dictionary  has  been  altered  by  editors  till  it  can 
scarcely  be  called  his.  An  allusion  to  his  Rambler 

10  or  his  Idler  is  not  readily  apprehended  in  literary 
circles.  The  fame  even  of  Rasselas  has  grown  some- 
what dim.  But,  though  the  celebrity  of  the  writings 
may  have  declined,  the  celebrity  of  the  writer,  strange 
to  say,  is  as  great  as  ever.  Boswell's  book  has  done 

*5  for  him  more  than  the  best  of  his  own  books  could  do. 
The  memory  of  other  authors  is  kept  alive  by  their 
works.  But  the  memory  of  Johnson  keeps  many  of 
his  works  alive.  The  old  philosopher  is  still  antang 
us  in  the  brown  coat  with  the  metal  buttons  and  the 

20  shirt  which  ought  to  be  at  wash,  blinking,  puffing, 
rolling  his  head,  drumming  with  his  fingers,  tearing 
his  meat  like  a  tiger,  and  swallowing  his  tea  in  oceans. 
No  human  being  who  has  been  more  than  seventy 
years  in  the  grave  is  so  well  known  to  us.  And  it  is 

25  but  just  to  say  that  our  intimate  acquaintance  with 


SAMUEL    JOHNSON  67 

what  he  would  himself  have  called  the  anfractuosities 
of  his  intellect  and  of  his  temper,  serves  only  to 
strengthen  our  conviction  that  he  was  both  a  great 
and  a  good  man. 


NOTES 

PAGE  1,  line  4.  Lichfield.  An  ancient  Episcopal  city  of 
Staffordshire,  one  of  the  west  midland  counties  of  England.  It 
is  situated  115  miles  northwest  of  London. 

9.  Worcestershire.  The  county  lying  directly  south  of 
Staffordshire. 

13.  Churchman.  A  member  of  the  Established  Church  of 
England,  —  the  American  branch  of  which  is  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church.  Members  of  other  religious  bodies — Pres- 
byterians, Congregationalists,  Baptists,  etc.  —  were  styled  Non- 
conformists or  Dissenters.  As  the  sovereign  appoints  through 
his  ministers  the  bishops  of  the  Church  of  England,  who  have 
seats  in  the  House  of  Lords,  "  churchrnanship "  in  former 
times  went  hand  in  hand  with  the  support  of  the  royal  au- 
thority. At  present,  however,  as  the  House  of  Commons  has 
control  of  all  royal  appointments,  and  the  bishops  may  belong 
to  either  party,  this  distinction  has  passed  away. 

15.  Sovereigns  in  possession.  William  III.  and  Mary,  ac- 
knowledged sovereigns  by  the  "Declaration  of  Rights,"  after 
the  expulsion  of  James  II. ,  the  preceding  year ;  Anne,  who 
succeeded  them  in  1702,  by  virtue  of  the  same  ordinance  ;  and 
the  monarchs  of  the  House  of  Brunswick,  who  took  the  throne 
through  the  "Act  of  Settlement"  of  1701.  These  acts  estab- 
lished the  power  of  the  English  people  to  decide,  through  their 
representatives,  which  branch  of  the  royal  family  should  rule. 

15.  Jacobite.  From  "  Jacobus,"  the  Latin  form  of  "James." 
A  supporter  of  the  exiled  James  II,  and  afterwards  of  his  son 
James,  and  grandson,  Charles,  who  were  respectively  styled  by 
the  opposing  party,  the  "Old  Pretender"  and  the  "Young 

69 


70  NOTES  [PAGES  1-3 

Pretender."  A  Jacobite  believed  in  strict  hereditary  succes- 
sion ;  in  the  divine  right  of  kings  ;  and  that  no  king,  whatever 
his  misconduct,  could  forfeit  his  throne. 

P.  2,  1.  10.  The  royal  touch.  The  vulgar  English  name  for 
scrofula,  "the  king's  evil,"  is  derived  from  the  long-cherished 
belief  that  it  could  be  healed  by  the  royal  touch.  In  this  was 
supposed  to  inhere  some  of  the  "Grace  of  God"  which  gave 
the  right  of  sovereignty  to  true  kings.  Old  historians  assert 
that  multitudes  of  patients  were  cured  by  this  treatment. 
Queen  Anne  was  the  last  English  sovereign  who  touched  for  the 
king's  evil.  Henry  VII.  introduced  the  practice  of  presenting 
the  patient  with  a  small  gold  coin. 

17.  Her  hand  was  applied  in  vain.  Perhaps  the  Jacobitism 
of  Johnson's  parents  prevented  the  usual  cure.  "The  old 
Jacobites  considered  that  this  power  did  not  descend  to  Mary, 
William,  or  Anne,  as  they  did  not  possess  a  full  hereditary  title  ; 
or,  in  other  words,  did  not  rule  by  divine  right.  The  kings  of 
the  house  of  Brunswick  have,  we  believe,  never  put  this  power 
to  the  proof ;  and  the  office  for  the  ceremony  which  appeared 
in  our  liturgy  as  late  a^  1719,  has  been  silently  omitted.  The 
exiled  princes  of  the  house  of  Stuart  are  supposed  to  have  in- 
herited this  virtue.  .  .  .  When  Prince  Charles  Edward  was  at 
Holyroodhouse  in  Oct.,  1745,  he,  although  only  claiming  to  be 
Prince  of  Wales  and  regent,  touched  a  female  child  for  the 
king's  evil,  who  in  twenty-one  days  is  said  to  have  been  per- 
fectly cured." —  The  English  Cyclopaedia. 

P.  3,  1.  11.  Attic  poetry  and  eloquence  refers  to  the  master- 
pieces of  the  great  orators  and  dramatists  of  Athens,  the  chief 
city  of  ancient  Green  •. 

15.     Augustan    refers  to   the    Roman    emperor,    Augustus 


PAGE  3]  NOTES  71 

Caesar.  During  his  reign  (27  B.C.-14  A.D.)  Latin  literature 
reached  its  highest  point  of  technical  excellence  in  the  works  of 
Horace,  Livy,  Ovid,  and  Virgil. 

17.  The  great  public  schools  of  England,  the  best  known 
of  which  are  Eton  and  Rugby,  are  not  supported  by  taxation 
like  our  public  schools,  but  by  endowments  and  the  tuition  of 
pupils.  The  classes  are  called  '•  forms,"  the  "  sixth  "  being  the 
highest.  Read  Tom  Brown's  School  Days,  by  Thomas  Hughes, 
an  interesting  story  of  life  at  Rugby.  English  school  life  has 
changed  but  little  during  the  last  two  or  three  centuries. 

21.  The  great  restorers  of  learning.  One  of  the  chief  re- 
sults of  the  Crusades  was  an  awakening  and  broadening  of  the 
thought  of  western  Europe.  In  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries  many  Italian  scholars  gave  themselves  up  to  the  en- 
thusiastic study  of  Greek  and  Roman  literature,  which  had 
been  practically  neglected  during  the  "Dark  Ages."  This 
movement  is  known  as  the  Revival  of  Learning.  Among  the 
prominent  restorers  of  learning  were  Petrarch,  Boccaccio, 
Poggio,  ^Eneas  Sylvius,  Pope  Nicholas  V. ;  and,  outside  of  Italy, 
Erasmus,  in  Flanders  ;  Casaubon  and  the  Scaligers,  in  France; 
and  Sir  Thomas  More,  in  England.  Read  George  Eliot's  Bom- 
ola,  a  novel  whose  scene  is  laid  in  Florence  at  the  close  of  the 
fifteenth  century. 

L'O.  Petrarch's  works.  Francesco  Petrarca  (1304-ir/4)  was 
the  greatest  scholar  of  his  day,  and  the  first  of  modern  writers 
to  write  really  classical  Latin,  besides  being  one  of  the  first  of 
western  Europeans  to  undertake  the  study  of  Greek  litera- 
ture. He  left  numerous  works  in  Latin  prose  and  verse,  but 
his  fame  rests  on  his  exquisite  sonnets  and  canzonets  in  the 
Italian  vernacular,  expressing  his  love  for  the  beautiful  Laura 


72  NOTES  [PAGES  3-5 

de  Sade.  See  Symonds's  Eenaissance  in  Italy,  Italian  Litera- 
ture, Part  I.,  Ch.  II.,  p.  84. 

P.  4,  1.  11.  At  either  university.  In  Johnson's  time  Eng- 
land had  two  universities:  Oxford,  supposed  to  have  been 
founded  by  Alfred  the  Great  in  the  ninth  century,  but  certainly 
in  existence  before  the  Norman  Conquest ;  and  Cambridge, 
which  originated  in  a  monastic  school  established  1110.  In  the 
nineteenth  century  three  new  universities  were  founded,  — 
London,  Durham,  and  Victoria. 

14.  Pembroke  College.  Founded  1620.  One  of  the  nine- 
teen colleges  which  composed  the  University  of  Oxford  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  In  the  nineteenth  century  two  new  colleges 
were  added.  Read  Tom  Brown  at  Oxford,  by  Thomas  Hughes ; 
and  Verdant  Green,  by  Cuthbert  Bede. 

21.  Macrobius.  A  Latin  grammarian  of  the  fifth  century 
A.D.  His  works  contain  many  valuable  historical,  mythological, 
and  critical  observations,  and  were  much  read  during  the  Mid- 
dle Ages.  The  "Nonnes  Preeste  "  in  Chaucer's  Canterbury 
Tales  thus  refers  to  him  :  — 

"  Macrobeus,  that  writ  the  avisioun 
In  Affrick  of  the  worthy  Cipioun, 
Affermeth  dremes,  and  seith  that  they  been 
Warninge  of  thinges  that  men  after  seen." 

P.  5,  1.  3.  Christ  Church.  One  of  the  most  fashionable  of 
the  Oxford  colleges.  Founded  by  Cardinal  Wolsey  in  1526. 

9.  Gentleman  commoner.  A  student  of  "gentle"  (i.e.  aris- 
tocratic) birth,  who  pays  for  his  commons  (meals  in  the  college 
hall),  his  room,  and  college  fees  ;  as  distinguished  from  a  student 
supported  by  a  "  foundation  "  or  scholarship.  In  Johnson's  time 
special  privileges  were  enjoyed  by  the  sons  of  noblemen. 


PAGES  5-6]  NOTES  73 

17.  The  ringleader.  This  passage  is  a  good  example  of 
Macaulay's  tendency  to  exaggerate  for  the  sake  of  picturesque 
effect.  It  is  founded  on  the  following  from  BoswelPs  Life  of 
Johnson :  "  I  have  heard  from  some  of  his  contemporaries  that 
he  was  generally  seen  lounging  at  the  college  gate,  with  a  circle 
of  young  students  round  him  whom  he  was  entertaining  with 
wit,  and  keeping  from  their  studies,  if  not  spiriting  them  up  to 
rebellion  against  the  College  discipline,  which  in  his  maturer 
years  he  so  much  extolled."  Note  how  in  retelling  the  story 
Macaulay,  by  his  choice  of  words,  gives  it  a  much  higher  color. 
There  is,  however,  no  authority  for  "every  mutiny." 

19.  Abilities  and  acquirements.     Dr.  Adams  said,  "I  was 
his  nominal  tutor  ;  but  he  was  above  my  mark."  —  Boswell. 

20.  Pope's  "  Messiah."   Alexander  Pope  (1688-1744)  domi- 
nated English  verse  through  nearly  all  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
He  is  deficient  in  originality  and  poetic  elevation  ;  but  has  not 
been  surpassed  as  a  polished  versifier,  satirist,  and  moralizer  in 
rhyme.     Next  to  Shakespeare  he  is  the  most  quoted  of  English 
writers.     His  best  work  is  the  Essay  on  Man. 

'2-1.  Virgilian.  The  poems  of  Publius  Virgilius  Maro  (70-19 
B.C.),  the  ^Eneid,  the  Eclogues,  and  the  Georgics,  are  the  most 
polished  examples  of  Latin  versification. 

P.  6.  1.  1.  Bachelor  of  Arts.  "B.A.",  the  first  degree 
given  to  a  student  at  his  graduation.  The  next  degree  is 
•'M.A.,"  or  Master  of  Arts.  The  third  is  Doctor  —  of  Divinity, 
Laws,  or  Philosophy  ;  "D.D.,  LL.D.,  Ph.D." 

23.  Absolving  felons  and  setting  aside  wills.  Defendants 
are  acquitted  and  wills  are  set  aside  by  the  law  courts  upon 
proof  of  insanity.  Note  how  Macaulay  creates  a  powerful 
picture  by  stating  special  incidents,  and  how  by  the  use  of  the 


74  NOTES  [PAGES  6-8 

word  "would"  (see  page  7,  line  1),  he  gives  the  impression 
that  these  were  habitual  occurrences. 

P.  8,  1.  1.  His  religion.  Although  Johnson  was  undoubtedly 
a  confirmed  hypochondriac,  yet  that  his  religion  was  a  great 
help  and  comfort  to  him  is  shown  by  numerous  letters  and  con- 
versations reported  by  Boswell.  The  following  prayer,  com- 
posed and  offered  up  by  Johnson  on  undertaking  the  Rambler, 
is  characteristic :  — 

"Almighty  God,  the  Giver  of  all  good  things,  without  whose 
help  all  labor  is  ineffectual,  and  without  whose  grace  all  wisdom 
is  folly  ;  grant  I  beseech  Thee,  that  in  this  my  undertaking,  thy 
Holy  Spirit  may  not  be  withheld  from  me,  but  that  I  may  pro- 
mote thy  glory,  and  the  salvation  of  myself  and  others :  Grant 
this,  O  Lord,  for  the  sake  of  thy  son  Jesus  Christ.  Amen." 
—  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson. 

8.  Too  dim  to  cheer  him.  "Johnson  as  drawn  by  Boswell 
is  too  'awful,  melancholy,  and  venerable.'  Hawkins  (Life, 
p.  258)  says,  that  '  in  the  talent  of  humour  there  hardly  ever 
was  Johnson's  equal,  except  perhaps  among  the  old  comedians.' 
Murphy  writes  (Life,  p.  139):  'Johnson  was  surprised  to  be 
told,  but  it  is  certainly  true,  that  with  great  powers  of  mind, 
wit  and  humour  were  his  shining  talents.'  Mrs.  Piozzi  confirms 
this.  'Mr.  Murphy,'  she  writes  (Anecdotes,  p.  20f>),  'always 
said  he  was  incomparable  at  buffoonery.'  She  adds  (p.  298) : 
'  He  would  laugh  at  a  stroke  of  genuine  li  amour,  or  sudden 
sally  of  odd  absurdity  as  heartily  and  freely  as  I  ever  yet  saw 
any  man  ;  and,  though  the  jest  was  often  such  as  few  felt 
besides  himself,  yet  his  laugh  was  irresistible,  and  was  observed 
immediately  to  produce  that  of  the  company,  not  merely  from 
the  notion  that  it  was  proper  to  laugh  when  he  did,  but  from 


PAGES  8-10]  NOTES  75 

lack  of  power  to  forbear  it.'  Miss  Barney  records  :  '  Dr.  John- 
son has  more  fun  and  comical  humour,  and  love  of  nonsense 
about  him  than  almost  anybody  I  ever  saw.'  "  —  G.  Birkbeck 
Hill's  Boswell,  Vol.  II.,  p.  261,  note.  Boswell  himself  says  :  "  I 
passed  many  hours  with  him  on  the  17th  [May,  1775]  of  which 
I  find  all  my  memorial  is  '  much  laughing.'  It  should  seem  that 
he  had  that  day  been  in  a  humour  for  jocularity  and  merriment, 
and  upon  such  occasions  I  never  knew  a  man  laugh  more  heartily. 
Johnson's  laugh  was  as  remarkable  as  any  circumstance  in  his 
manner.  It  was  a  kind  of  good  humoured  growl.  Tom  Davies 
described  it  drolly  enough  :  '  He  laughs  like  a  rhinoceros.'  " 

25.  Usher  of  a  grammar  school.  In  England  "grammar 
schools"  are  those  in  which  Latin  and  Greek  are  ''grammati- 
cally taught."  An  "  usher  "  is  a  subordinate  teacher. 

P.  9,  1.  7.  A  Latin  book  about  Abyssinia.  Voyage  to  Abys- 
sinia, by  Lobo,  a  Portuguese  Jesuit.  For  this  work  Johnson 
received  five  guineas  (about  §25),  and  he  did  not  consider  him- 
self ill  paid. 

9.  Politian.  Angelo  Poliziano  (1454-1494)  occupies  a  fore- 
most place  in  the  "Revival  of  Learning"  in  virtue  of  his  vigor 
and  originality .  He  was  a  close  friend  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici, 
the  greatest  ruler  of  Florence  ;  and  his  poems,  both  in  Latin 
and  Italian,  are  of  very  high  merit. 

19.  Queensberrys  and  Lepels.  Leading  families  of  the  Brit- 
ish nobility. 

23.  His  Titty.  Macaulay  has  changed  the  nickname  to 
make  it  more  ridiculous.  According  to  Boswell,  Johnson  called 
her  Tetty  or  Tetsey,  a  provincial  nickname  for  Elizabeth,  and 
similar  to  Betty  or  Betsey. 

P.  10,  1.  1.    As  poor  as  himself.     Another  of    Macaulay'a 


76  NOTES  [PAGE  10 

exaggerations.  "  The  author  of  the  Life  and  Memoirs  of  Dr. 
Johnson  says  :  '  Mrs.  Porter's  husband  died  insolvent,  but  her 
settlement  was  secured.  She  brought  her  second  husband  seven 
or  eight  hundred  pounds,  a  great  part  of  which  was  expended 
in  fitting  up  a  house  for  a  boarding  school.'  .  .  .  After  nearly 
twenty  months  of  married  life,  when  he  went  to  London,  '  he 
had,'  Boswell  says,  'a  little  money.'  It  was  not  till  a  year 
later  that  he  began  to  write  for  The  Gentleman'1  s  Magazine.  If 
Mrs.  Johnson  had  not  money,  how  did  she  and  her  husband  live 
from  July,  1735,  to  the  spring  of  1738  ?  It  could  scarcely  have 
been  on  the  profits  made  from  their  school."  —  Hill's  Boswell, 
Vol.  I.,  p.  95,  note  3. 

4.  A  suitor  who  might  have  been  her  son.  Contrast  with 
Macaulay's  picture  the  following  from  Carlyle's  Essay  on 
BosweWs  Life  of  Johnson :  — 

"  Finally,  the  choicest  terrestrial  good :  a  Friend,  who  will  be 
Wife  to  him!  Johnson's  marriage  with  the  good  Widow  Porter 
has  been  treated  with  ridicule  by  many  mortals,  who  appar- 
ently had  no  understanding  thereof.  That  the  purblind,  seatny- 
faced  Wild-man,  stalking  lonely,  woe-stricken,  like  some  Irish 
Gallowglass  with  peeled  club,  whose  speech  no  man  knew, 
whose  look  all  men  both  laughed  at  and  shuddered  at.  should 
find  any  brave  female  heart  to  acknowledge,  at  first  sight  and 
hearing  of  him,  '  This  is  the  most  sensible  man  I  ever  met 
with;'  and  then,  with  generous  courage,  to  take  him  to  itself, 
and  say,  '  Be  thou  mine  ;  be  thou  warmed  here,  and  thawed  to 
life!' — in  all  this,  in  the  kind  Widow's  love  and  pity  for  him, 
in  Johnson's  love  and  gratitude,  there  is  actually  no  matter  for 
ridicule.  Their  wedded  life,  as  is  the  common  lot,  was  made 
up  of  drizzle  and  dry  weather  ;  but  innocence  and  worth  dwelt 
in  it;  and,  when  death  had  ended  it,  a  certain  sacredness : 
Johnson's  deathless  affection  for  his  Tetty  was  always  venerable 
and  noble." 


PAGES  10-12]  NOTES  17 

13.  "  Pretty  creature  ! "  Mrs.  Thrale  says  :  "  The  picture  I 
found  of  her  at  Lichfield  was  very  pretty,  and  her  daughter 
said  it  was  like.  Mr.  Johnson  has  told  me  that  her  hair  was 
eminently  beautiful,  quite  blonde  like  that  of  a  baby."  — Piozzi's 
Anecdotes,  p.  148.  In  Johnson's  private  memoranda  of  his 
tour  in  France,  fourteen  years  after  his  wife's  death,  is  the 
following :  "  The  sight  of  palaces,  and  other  great  buildings, 
leaves  no  very  distinct  images  unless  to  those  who  talk  of  them. 
As  I  entered,  my  wife  was  in  my  mind ;  she  would  have  been 
pleased.  Having  now  nobody  to  please,  I  am  little  pleased." 

24.  David  Garrick  (1716-1779)  was  the  greatest  of  all  Eng- 
lish actors.  He  did  more  than  any  one  else  to  restore  Shake- 
speare's plays  to  the  English  stage.  As  an  actor,  he  was  equally 
at  home  in  the  highest  poetry  of  tragedy  and  the  lowest  jests  of 
farce.  Read  Goldsmith's  poem  Retaliation  for  a  capital  sketch 
of  his  character.  In  it  occurs  these  often  quoted  lines, — 

"  On  the  stage  he  was  natural,  simple,  affecting, 
'Twas  ouly  that,  when  he  was  off,  he  was  acting." 

Garrick  was  the  source  of  all  the  ridicule  heaped  upon  Mrs. 
Johnson.  Percy  says,  "As  Johnson  kept  Garrick  much  in 
awe  when  present,  David,  when  his  back  was  turned,  repaid 
his  restraint  with  ridicule  of  him  and  his  Dulcinea,  which 
should  be  read  with  much  abatement." 

P.  11,  1.  6.  Irene.  The  story  of  the  play  deals  with  the  love 
of  Mahomet  the  Great,  the  Turkish  conqueror  of  Constanti- 
nople, for  a  beautiful  Greek  captive.  Read  The  Prince  of 
India,  by  Lew  Wallace,  for  this  tale. 

18.   Secretary  of  state.     See  Appendix,  p.  126  and  p.  157. 

P.  12,  1.  8.  Thomson,  James  (1700-1748).  The  first  Eng- 
lish poet  to  take  nature  for  his  subject.  Besides  the  Seasons, 


78  NOTES  [PAGES  12-13 

his  best-known  works  are  the  Castle  of  Indolence  and  the  song 
Rule  Brittania. 

9.  Fielding,    Henry    (1707-1754).      The    greatest    English 
novelist  of   the   eighteenth   century ;  also  a  playwright  of  no 
mean  ability.      Two  of  his   novels,   Tom  Jones  and    Joseph 
Andrews,  although  disfigured  by  the  coarseness  common  to  his 
age,  are  among  the  masterpieces  of  English  fiction. 

10.  The  Beggar's  Opera,  by  John  Gay  (1685-1732),  was  the 
most  successful  dramatic  piece  produced  in  England  during  the 
first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century.    The  characters  are  all 
taken  from  low  life,  and  the  hero  is  a  highwayman  ;  but  it  is 
a  scathing  satire  on  the  fashionable  society  of  the  day.     It 
appeared  in  1726,  and  is  still  occasionally  represented.     The 
best  part  is  the  songs.     From  one  of  these  come  the  often 
quoted  lines, — 

"  How  happy  could  I  be  with  either, 
Were  t'other  dear  charmer  away." 

20.  Porter's  knot.  "  A  kind  of  double  shoulder-pad,  with  a 
loop  passing  round  the  forehead  ;  the  whole  roughly  resembling 
a  horse-collar,  used  by  London  market  porters  for  carrying  their 
burdens."  —  Cassell's  Encyclopedic  Dictionary.  "Perhaps 
originally  a  rope  tied  or  knotted  into  a  loop."  —  Murray's 
Dictionary. 

P.  13,  1.  12.  Drury  Lane.  A  street  in  the  heart  of  London. 
In  the  seventeenth  century  it  had  been  a  fashionable  residence 
district ;  but  in  Johnson's  time  it  was  ceasing  to  be  respectable. 

25.  Subterranean  ordinaries.  Cheap  eating-houses  situated 
in  cellars.  Alamode  beef  was  "  scraps  and  remainders  of  beef 
boiled  down  into  a  thick  soup  or  stew."  —  Murray's  Dictionary. 


PAGES  13-14]  NOTES  79 

The  ancient  hare  and  the  rancid  meat  pie  are  single  instances 
which  Macaulay  magnifies  into  habitual  occurrences  by  the  use 
of  the  word  "whenever."  There  are  many  authentic  anec- 
dotes, reported  by  Boswell  and  others,  to  show  that  Johnson, 
though  a  voracious  eater,  fully  appreciated  good  cooking.  Bos- 
well,  who  dined  with  him,  found  the  meal  excellent  though 
plain;  and  Hawkins  speaks  of  "his  not  inelegant  dinners." 

P.  14,  1.  8.  Rude  even  to  ferocity.  "  Once  Johnson  is  said 
to  have  taken  up  a  chair  at  the  theatre,  upon  which  a  man  had 
seated  himself  during  his  temporary  absence,  and  to  have 
tossed  it  and  its  occupant  bodily  into  the  pit." — Leslie  Stephen's 
Life  of  Johnson. 

12.  Societies  where  he  was  treated  with  courtesy  and  kind- 
ness. "To  obviate  all  the  reflections  which  have  gone  round 
the  world  to  Johnson's  prejudice,  by  applying  to  him  the  epithet 
of  a  bear,  let  me  impress  upon  my  readers  a  just  and  happy 
saying  of  my  friend  Goldsmith,  who  knew  him  well,  'Johnson, 
to  be  sure,  has  a  roughness  in  his  manner  ;  but  no  man  alive  has 
a  more  tender  heart.  He  has  nothing  of  the  bear  but  his  skin.1 '' 
—  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson.  "  Reynolds  said :  'Johnson  had 
one  virtue  which  I  hold  one  of  the  most  difficult  to  practise. 
After  the  heat  of  contest  was  over,  if  he  had  been  informed  that 
his  antagonist  resented  his  rudeness ;  he  was  the  first  to  seek 
after  a  reconciliation.'  Johnson  wrote  to  Dr.  Taylor  in  1756 : 
« When  I  am  musing  alone,  I  feel  a  pang  for  every  moment  that 
any  human  being  has  by  my  peevishness  or  obstinacy  spent  in 
uneasiness.'  "  —  Hill's  Boswell,  Vol.  II.,  p.  256,  note. 

15.  Osborne.  "  It  has  been  confidently  related,  with  many 
embellishments,  that  Johnson  one  day  knocked  Osborne  down 
in  his  shop,  with  a  folio,  and  put  his  foot  upon  his  neck.  The 


80  NOTES  [PAGES  14-15 

simple  truth  I  had  from  Johnson  himself.  '  Sir,  he  was  imper- 
tinent to  me,  and  I  beat  him.  But  it  was  not  in  his  shop :  it 
was  in  my  own  chamber.'  "  —  Bosicell. 

"There  is  nothing  to  tell,  dearest  lady,' but  that  he  was  inso- 
lent and  I  beat  him,  and  that  he  was  a  blockhead  and  told  of  it, 
which  I  should  never  have  done.  ...  I  have  beat  many  a  fel- 
low, but  the  rest  had  the  wit  to  hold  their  tongues."  —  Mrs. 
Piozzi's  Anecdotes  of  Johnson,  p.  233. 

19.  Harleian  Library.  The  famous  library  collected  by 
Robert  Harley,  Earl  of  Oxford,  which  had  been  purchased  by 
Osborne.  Johnson  wrote  the  introduction  to  the  catalogue,  and 
the  Latin  accounts  of  the  books. 

24.  The  Gentleman's  Magazine,  originated  by  Edward  Cave 
in  January,  1731,  is  still  in  existence.  Cave  used  the  nom  de 
plume  "  Sylvanus  Urban"  as  editor;  and  the  title  is  the  first 
application  of  the  word  "magazine  "  to  a  periodical.  Johnson 
had  a  high  opinion  of  Cave,  whose  life  he  afterward  wrote. 
The  story  is  told,  that,  at  some  of  the  dinners  Cave  gave  his 
contributors,  a  plate  was  passed  to  Johnson,  who  was  seated 
behind  a  screen,  as  his  clothes  were  too  ragged  to  permit  his 
appearing  at  table. 

P.  15,  1.  8.  Senate  of  Lilliput.  Every  one  should  read  Gulli- 
ver1 a  Voyages  to  Lilliput  and  Brobdingnag,  by  Swift.  The  stories 
are  so  well  told  that  they  remain  deeply  interesting  to  this  day 
though  the  objects  of  Swift's  merciless  satire  are  well-nigh  for- 
gotten. "  Blefuscu,"  "Mildendo,"  "sprugs,"  and  "  Nardac  " 
are  terms  taken  from  the  Voyages.  Johnson  wrote  the  debates 
from  November,  1740,  to  February,  1743.  He  told  Boswell  that 
"  as  soon  as  he  found  they  were  thought  genuine  he  determined 
he  would  write  no  more  of  them,  '  for  he  would  not  be  accessory 


PAGES  15-16]  NOTES  81 

to  the  propagation  of  a  falsehood.' "  It  is  likely  that  this  tender- 
ness of  conscience  cost  Cave  a  good  deal.  Hawkins  writes  that, 
while  Johnson  composed  the  Debates,  the  sale  of  the  Magazine 
increased  from  ten  to  fifteen  thousand  copies  a  month. 

11.  Lord  Hardwicke.     Philip  Yorke  (1690-1764)  was  one  of 
the  strongest  supporters  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  who  made  him 
Lord  Chancellor  in  1733.     See  Green's   History  of  the  English 
People,   Ch.    IX.,    Sec.  X.     Hickrad  is  a  caricature  of  Lord 
Hardwicke's  name. 

12.  William  Pulteney,  Earl  of  Bath  (1684-1764),  was  for 
some  time  the  chief  opponent  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole.     He  was 
the  leader  of  a  faction  that  called  itself  "The  Patriots."    The 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons  described  him  as  "having 
the  most  popular  parts  for  public  speaking  of  any  great  man 
he  ever  knew."     A  contemporary  epigram  says  of  him,  — 

"...  Billy,  of  all  Bob's  foes, 
The  wittiest  in  verse  and  prose." 

22.  Capulets  and  Montagues  were  the  two  families  whose 
feud  forms  the  background  of  Shakespeare's  tragedy  Borneo 
and  Juliet. 

23.  The  Blues  of  the  Roman  circus  against  the  Greens.     In 
the  later  days  of  the  Roman  Empire,  the  chariot  races  in  the 
hippodrome  at  Constantinople  were  the  chief  amusement  of  the 
degenerate  populace,  which  divided  into  factions  named  from 
the  colors  worn  by  the  drivers.      The  animosities  of  these  fac- 
tions sometimes  led  to  serious  riots,  and  even  to  incendiarism 
and  massacre.     An  interesting  account  is  in  Gibbon's  Decline 
and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  Ch.  XL.,  Sec.  II; 

P.  16,  1.  2.     Sacheverell  was  a  "  High  Church,"  Tory  clergy- 


82  NOTES  [PAGE  16 

man,  of  mediocre  ability,  who  gained  a  place  in  the  history 
of  England  by  two  sermons  delivered  in  1709.  In  these  he 
attacked  the  principles  of  the  revolution  of  1688,  asserted 
the  doctrine  of  non-resistance  to  kings,  and  decried  the  "Act 
of  Toleration."  The  ministry  foolishly  prosecuted  him,  and 
the  public  excitement  which  this  aroused  led  to  the  over- 
throw of  the  Whig  party,  and  the  fall  of  the  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough.  Read  Green's  History  of  the  English  People,  Ch.  IX., 
Sec.  IX. 

13.  Tom  Tempest  is  a  character  in  No.  10  of  the  Idler. 
Johnson  describes  him  as  a  man  "  of  integrity,  where  no  factious 
interest  is  to  be  promoted  ;"  and  a  "lover  of  truth,"  when  not 
"  heated  with  political  debate."  And  then  continues  :  — 

"  Tom  Tempest  is  a  steady  friend  of  the  house  of  Stuart. 
He  can  recount  the  prodigies  that  have  appeared  in  the  sky, 
and  the  calamities  that  have  afflicted  the  nation  every  year  from 
the  Revolution  ;  and  is  of  opinion,  that,  if  the  exiled  family 
had  continued  to  reign,  there  would  have  been  neither  worms  in 
our  ships  nor  caterpillars  in  our  trees.  He  wonders  that  the 
nation  was  not  awakened  by  the  hard  frost  to  a  revocation  of 
the  true  king,  and  is  hourly  afraid  that  the  whole  island  may  be 
lost  in  the  sea.  He  believes  that  King  William  burned  White- 
hall that  he  might  steal  the  furniture  ;  and  that  Tillotson  died 
an  Atheist.  Of  Queen  Anne  he  speaks  with  more  tenderness  ; 
owns  that  she  meant  well,  and  can  tell  by  whom  and  why  she 
was  poisoned.  In  the  succeeding  reigns  all  has  been  corruption, 
malice,  and  design.  He  believes  that  nothing  ill  has  ever  hap- 
pened for  these  forty  years  by  chance  or  errour  ;  he  holds  that 
the  battle  of  Dettingen  was  won  by  mistake  and  that  of  Fon- 
tenoy  lost  by  contract ;  that  the  Victory  was  sunk  by  a  private 
order;  that  Cornhill  was  fired  by  emissaries  of  the  Council; 
and  that  the  arch  of  Westminster-bridge  was  so  contrived  as  to 
sink  on  purpose,  that  the  Nation  might  be  put  to  charge.  He 


PAGE  16]  NOTES  83 

considers  the  new  road  to  Islington  as  an  encroachment  on 
liberty,  and  often  asserts  that  broad  wheels  will  be  the  ruin  of 
England." 

A  man  who  can  jest  in  this  comical  fashion  about  the  ex- 
tremists of  his  own  party,  can  hardly  be  the  bigot  that  Macau- 
lay  portrays  so  vividly. 

13.  Charles  II.    (1660-1685)   and  James   II.    (1685-1688). 
The  last  two  reigning  sovereigns  of  the  male  line  of  the  Stuarts  ; 
the  former  noted  for  his  profligacy,  the  latter  for  his  bigotry. 
Read  Green's  History,  Ch.  IX.,  Sec.  III.,  and  Sec.  VI. 

14.  Laud,  William,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  under  Charles 
I.,  and  leader  in  the  oppression  of  the  Puritans.     He  was  exe/- 
cuted  by  ordinance  of  Parliament.  January  10,  1644—1645.     Ma- 
caulay,  whose  Whig  prejudices  were  as  strong  as  Johnson's  Tory 
prepossessions,  is  unjust  to  Laud,  who  was  a  man  of  great 
mental  attainments.     Green,  in   his  History,  Ch.  VIII.,   Sec. 
IV..  gives  an  impartial  view  of  the  great  prelate. 

18.  Hampden,  John  (1594-1643).  One  of  the  chief  opponents 
of  the  arbitrary  measures  by  which  Charles  I.  endeavored  to 
make  the  English  monarchy  absolute.  See  Green's  History, 
Ch.  VIII.,  Sees.  III.  and  V. 

20.  Ship  money.     One  of  the  means  by  which  Charles  tried 
to  raise  money  in  1634,  without  calling  a  parliament.     Hamp- 
den was  foremost  in  the  opposition  to  this  measure.    See  Green's 
History,  Ch.  VIII.,  Sec.  V. 

21.  Falkland.     Lucius  Cary,  Viscount  of  (1610-1643).     In 
the  beginning  of  his  career  he  was  distinguished  by  his  zeal  for 
Parliament  and  the  constitution   of  his  country ;    but,   later, 
offended  by  what  he  considered  the  excesses  of  the  popular 
party,  he  took  sides  with  Charles  I.     He  was    killed   in  the 


84  NOTES  [PAGES  10-17 

Civil  War.  See  Green's  History,  Ch.  XIII.,  Sec.  VI.,  and 
Ch.  IX.,  Sec.  I. 

22.  Clarendon.  Edward  Hyde,  Earl  of  Clarendon  (1608- 
1674),  like  Falkland,  took  at  first  the  side  of  Parliament ;  but  at 
the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War,  joined  the  king.  At  the  Restora- 
tion he  was  made  Lord  High  Chancellor  of  England.  His  daugh- 
ter Anne  became  the  wife  of  the  Duke  of  York,  afterwards 
James  II.,  and  the  mother  of  Mary  and  Anne,  queens  of  Eng- 
land. Why  is  Macaulay's  use  of  the  names  of  Falkland  and 
Clarendon  in  this  instance  unfair  ? 

22.  Roundheads.  A  term  of  ridicule  applied  by  the  royal- 
ists to  the  supporters  of  Parliament  against  Charles  I.,  on 
account  of  the  fashion  they  had  adopted  of  wearing  the  hair 
closely  cut.  The  "Cavaliers,"  as  the  king's  adherents  were 
called,  wore  long  flowing  curls. 

P.  17,  1.  7.  Mangled  with  the  shears.  Criminals  frequently 
had  nose  and  ears  cut  off  in  "  the  good  old  times." 

9.  Dissenters,  etc.  The  Whig  party,  which  held  almost 
uninterrupted  power  from  1088  to  1760,  tolerated  the  Dissent- 
ers, favored  the  mercantile  classes,  created  the  national  debt, 
enacted  that  parliaments  should  be  elected  at  least  every  seven 
years,  and  made  alliances  with  continental  European  Powers. 
The  "excise  "  was  an  internal  tax  on  liquors  first  introduced  in 
the  Long  Parliament  in  1643,  and  increased  during  the  \v;irs 
with  France.  It  was  vehemently  opposed  by  the  old-fashioned 
Tories. 

15.  The  Great  Rebellion.  During  the  Civil  War  between 
Charles  I.  and  Parliament,  the  Scotch  were  the  first  to  oppose 
the  king,  and  when,  after  his  defeat  by  Cromwell  at  Naseby, 
Charles  threw  himself  upon  the  loyalty  of  the  Scotch  army,  he 


PAGES  17-19]  XOTES      .  85 

was  surrendered  by  them  to  Parliament  for  the  sum  of  £400,000. 
This  was  in  ''payment  of  all  the  arears  of  the  subsidies  which 
were  owed  them  for -their  services  in  England."  As  Charles 
was  executed  in  1649  by  order  of  Parliament,  one  may  easily 
understand  why  the  good  Tory  Johnson  held  the  Scotch  respon- 
sible for  the  death  of  the  "  Martyr  lung."  See  Green's  History, 
Ch.  VII. 

P.  18, 1.  6.  Juvenal  and  Horace  were  the  two  greatest  Roman 
satirists.  Horace  (65-8,  B.C.)  belonged  to  the  Augustan  age, 
while  Juvenal  flourished  about  the  end  of  the  first  century 
(60-140  A.D.).  They  respectively  represent  the  two  schools  of 
satire,  —  that  of  easy-going  ridicule,  and  that  of  moral  indigna- 
tion. Horace  was  a  man  of  the  world  ;  and  Juvenal,  a  reformer. 
Juvenal  "uses  satire,  not  as  a  branch  of  comedy,  which  it  was 
to  Horace,  but  as  an  engine  for  attacking  the  brutalities  of 
tyranny,  the  corruptions  of  life  and  taste,  the  crimes,  the  follies, 
and  the  frenzies  of  a  degenerate  state  of  society.  He  has  great 
humor  of  a  scornful,  austere,  and  singularly  pungent  kind,  and 
many  noble  flashes  of  high  moral  poetry.  Dryden's,  translations 
of  five  of  the  satires  are  among  his  best  works." 

10.    Horace.     See  preceding  note. 

18.  Johnson's  London.  The  following  lines  give  some  idea 
of  the  character  of  the  poem :  — 

"  This  mournful  truth  is  everywhere  confessed, 
Slow  rises  worth  by  poverty  oppressed, 
But  here  more  slow  where  all  are  slaves  to  gold, 
Where  looks  are  merchandise,  and  smiles  are  sold, 
Where,  won  by  bribes,  by  flatterers  implored, 
The  groom  retails  the  favours  of  his  lord." 

P.  19,  1.  9.     The  attempt  failed.    At  Pope's  suggestion,  Lord 


86  NOTES  [PAGE  19 

Gower  used  his  influence  with  the  authorities  of  Dublin  Univer- 
sity to  obtain  for  Johnson  the  degree  of  M.A.,  which  the  posi- 
tion required.  It  was  well  for  English  literature  that  Johnson 
was  forced  for  years  yet  to  support  himself  by  his  pen.  He  was 
not  at  all  fitted  to  be  a  schoolmaster. 

17.  Pamphleteers  and  indexmakers.    Most  of  the  sort  of 
matter  which  nowadays  is  published  in  our  multifarious  period- 
icals appeared  then  in  pamphlet  form  ;  and  the  making  of  in- 
dexes to  learned  works  was  a  common  means  of  support  to 
unknown  scholars. 

18.  Boyse,  Samuel  (1708-1749),  a  forgotten  poet,  some  of 
whose  lines  to  the  Deity  are  quoted  admiringly  by  Fielding  in 
Tom  Jones,  Book  VII.,  Ch.  I.     He  was  probably  one  of  the 
most  shiftless  of  the  whole  breed  of  "  Grub  Street  poets."     He 
failed  to  get  a  good  position  in  Edinburgh,  because  he  would 
not  go  out  on  a  rainy  day  to  make  his  application.    Johnson 
"told  how  he  had  once  exerted  himself  for  his  comrade  in  mis- 
ery, and  collected  enough  money  by  sixpences  to  get  the  poet's 
clothes  out  of  pawn.    Two  days  afterward  Boyse  had  spent  the 
money,  and  was  found  in  bed   covered  only  with  a  blanket, 
through  two  holes  in  which  he  passed  his  arms  to  write.    Boyse, 
it  appears,  when  still  in  this  position,  would  lay  out  his  last 
half  guinea  to  buy  mushrooms  and  truffles  for  his  last  scrap 
of  beef."  —  Stephen's  Life  of  Johnson.      (See  Appendix,  pp. 
130-134.) 

23.  Hoole.  All  we  know  of  him  is  what  Johnson  said  to 
Hoole's  nephew,  John  Hoole,  the  translator  of  Tasso :  "  Sir,  I 
knew  him ;  we  called  him  the  metaphysical  tailor.  He  was 
of  a  club  in  Old  Street  with  me,  and  George  Psalnianazar, 
and  some  others."  And  then  John  Hoole  spoke  of  his 


PAGES  19-20J  NOTES  87 

uncle's  tracing  diagrams  on  his  cutting  board.  —  Boswell's  Life 
of  Johnson. 

P.  20,  1.  2.  George  Psalmanazar  was  a  Frenchman  who  for 
a  time  achieved  quite  a  notoriety  in  England  by  pretending  to 
be  a  native  of  Formosa  and  a  convert  to  Christianity.  In  1704 
he  published  his  Historical  and  Geographical  Description  of 
Formosa.  "So  gross  is  the  forgery  that  it  almost  passes  belief 
that  it  was  widely  accepted  as  a  true  narrative."  Later,  being 
stricken  by  conscience,  he  made  a  public  confession  of  his  im- 
posture and  supported  himself  for  the  rest  of  a  long  life  by 
translating,  etc.  Johnson  said  of  him  :  ' '  He  had  never  seen  the 
close  of  the  life  of  anyone  that  he  wished  so  much  his  own  to 
resemble  as  that  of  him,  for  its  purity  and  devotion."  He  was 
asked  if  he  ever  contradicted  him.  "I  should  as  soon,"  said 
he,  "have  thought  of  contradicting  a  bishop."  When  he  was 
asked  whether  he  had  mentioned  Formosa  before  him,  he  said, 
"he  was  afraid  to  mention  even  China."  Johnson  used  to 
meet  him  at  an  alehouse.  "  Johnson  in  an  alehouse  club,  with 
a  metaphysical  tailor  on  one  side  of  him,  and  an  aged  writer  on 
the  other  side  of  him,  '  who  spoke  English  with  the  city  accent 
and  coarsely  enough,'  and  whom  he  would  never  venture  to 
contradict,  is  a  Johnson  that  we  cannot  easily  imagine." — 
Hill's  Bosicell,  Vol.  III.,  Appendix  A. 

8.  Richard  Savage  (1698-1743).  His  most  successful 
poem  was  the  Wanderer,  which  contains  some  strong  lines,  but 
is  now  forgotten.  In  1727  he  killed  a  man  in  a  tavern  brawl, 
was  confined  in  Newgate  (the  chief  prison  of  London),  and 
condemned  to  death.  The  intercession  of  the  Countess  of 
Hertford  with  the  queen  obtained  his  pardon.  Her  Majesty 
afterward  gave  him  an  allowance  of  £50  a  year,  which  he 


88  NOTES  [PAGES  20-23 

usually  squandered  in  a  week  of  debauchery.  He  is  re- 
membered now  only  for  his  connection  with  Johnson.  Of 
this  intimacy  Carlyle  writes:  "Neither,  though  Johnson  is 
obscure  and  poor,  need  the  highest  enjoyment  of  existence,  that 
of  heart  freely  communing  with  heart,  be  denied  him.  Savage 
and  he  wander  homeless  through  the  streets  ;  without  bed,  yet 
not  without  friendly  converse  ;  such  another  conversation  not, 
it  is  like,  producible  in  the  proudest  drawing-room  of  London. 
Nor,  under  the  void  Night,  upon  the  hard  pavement,  are  their 
own  woes  the  only  topic :  nowise ;  they  '  will  stand  by  their 
country,'  they  there,  the  two  Backwoodsmen  of  the  Brick 
Desert !  "  — Essay  on  BoswelVs  Johnson. 

24.  Covent  Garden  (properly  Convent  Garden)  was  originally 
the  garden  of  Westminster  Abbey.  It  is  now  a  square  cele- 
brated for  its  great  market  of  fruit,  vegetables,  and  flowers. 
In  the  seventeenth  century  it  was  a  fashionable  quarter  of 
the  city. 

P.  21,  1.  21.  Grub  Street.  "  The  name  of  a  street  in  London 
much  inhabited  by  writers  of  small  histories,  dictionaries,  and 
temporary  poems ;  whence  any  mean  production  is  called  Grub 
Street. " — -Johnson's  Dictionary. 

P.  22, 1.  10.  Warburton,  William,  Bishop  of  Gloucester  (1698- 
1779).  One  of  the  most  noted  English  theologians  and  philo- 
sophical writers. 

21.  Earl  of  Chesterfield  (1694-1773).  His  famous  Letters  to 
his  Son,  which  are  still  widely  read,  give  an  excellent  picture 
of  the  manners  and  morals  of  the  English  aristocracy  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  The  character  of  Sir  John  Chester  in 
Dickens's  Barnaby  Budge  is  founded  on  Lord  Chesterfield. 

P.  23,  1.  3.   Johnson's  homage.     The  following  passage  from 


PAGES  23-24]  NOTES  89 

Johnson's  Prospectus  is  interesting  as  a  contrast  to  the  famous 
Letter  (see  note,  p.  31,  1.  15)  written  some  years  later.  "And 
I  may  hope,  my  Lord,  that  since  you,  whose  authority  in  our 
language  is  so  generally  acknowledged,  have  commissioned  me 
to  declare  my  own  opinion,  I  shall  be  considered  as  exercising 
a  kind  of  vicarious  jurisdiction ;  and  that  the  power  which 
might  have  been  denied  to  my  own  claim,  will  be  readily 
allowed  me  as  the  delegate  of  your  Lordship." 

12.  Ate  like  a  cormorant.  The  following  passage  from  the 
Letters  is  considered  to  be  Chesterfield's  description  of  Johnson: 

"...  A  respectable  Hottentot,  who  throws  his  meat  any- 
where but  down  his  throat.  This  absurd  person  was  not  only 
uncouth  in  manners  and  warm  in  dispute,  but  behaves  in 
exactly  the  same  way  to  superiours,  equals,  and  inferiours  ;  and 
therefore,  by  a  necessary  consequence,  absurdly  to  two  of  them.*' 

16.  Inhospitable  door.  Johnson  in  his  Dictionary  defined 
"  patron  "  as  "  commonly  a  wretch  who  supports  with  insolence 
and  is  paid  with  flattery."  In  later  years  he  said  that  "Lord 
Chesterfield  was  dignified  but  he  was  insolent,"  and  that  "his 
manner  was  exquisitely  elegant."  And  again:  "This  man  I 
thought  had  been  a  lord  among  wits  ;  but  I  find  he  is  only  a  wit 
among  Lords."  Johnson  always  maintained  that  the  "  respect- 
able Hottentot "  was  not  meant  for  him.  "  Sir,"  said  he,  "  Lord 
Chesterfield  never  saw  me  eat  in  his  life."  But  the  opinion  of 
Boswell  was  otherwise. 

P.  24,  1.  4.  Wolsey,  Thomas  (1471-1530).  The  great  Eng- 
lish cardinal  and  prime  minister  of  Henry  VIII.  He  was  dis- 
graced on  account  of  his  counsel  and  conduct  in  the  matter  of 
the  divorce  of  Henry's  first  wife,  Catherine  of  Aragon.  See 
Shakespeare's  Henry  VIII. ,  and  Green's  History,  Ch.  VI. ,  Sec.  V. 


90  NOTES  [PAGE  24 

7.  Sejanus,  JElius.  A  Roman  knight,  to  -whom  Tiberius, 
the  successor  of  Augustus,  intrusted  the  entire  government  of 
the  empire,  so  that  he  himself  might  give  all  his  time  to  de- 
bauchery. Sejanus  plotted  to  supplant  his  master,  and  the  un- 
timely discovery  of  this  conspiracy  caused  his  downfall,  A.D.  31. 

17.  Hannibal  (247-183  B.C.).  The  great  Carthaginian  gen- 
eral. He  invaded  Italy  in  218  B.C.,  and  for  fifteen  years 
defeated  every  army  the  Romans  sent  against  him,  but  -was 
finally  obliged  to  return  to  Africa  to  oppose  the  Roman  general 
Scipio's  attack  on  Carthage.  Here  he  was  defeated  at  Zama, 
which  battle  closed  the  Second  Punic  War.  By  many  he  is 
considered  the  greatest  general  of  antiquity,. 

17.  Johnson's  Charles.  Charles  XII.,  king  of  Sweden  (1697- 
1718).  In  1700,  when  he  was  only  eighteen  years  old,  he  was 
attacked  by  a  coalition  of  Denmark,  Poland,  and  Russia.  In 
two  years'  time  he  forced  Denmark  to  sue  for  peace,  defeated  at 
Narva  the  Russian  army,  which  outmimbered  his  forces  six  to 
one,  and  drove  Augustus,  the  king  of  Poland,  from  that  country, 
supplanting  him  by  a  king  of  his  own  choice.  Later,  he  invaded 
Russia,  and  was  finally  defeated  by  Peter  the  Great  at  Pultowa, 
1709.  (Read  Byron's  Mazeppa.}  Charles  then  fled  to  Turkey, 
where  he  managed  to  rouse  the  porte  against  Peter.  The  great 
czar  was  only  saved  from  destruction  through  the  bribing  of 
the  Turkish  vizier  by  Catherine,  afterward  Peter's  wife  and 
empress.  Charles  was  finally  imprisoned  by  the  Turks,  but 
escaped  in  1714,  to  find  that  most  of  his  provinces  south  of  the 
Baltic  had  been  conquered  by  his  enemies.  Nevertheless,  un- 
daunted, he  attacked  the  Norwegian  possessions  of  Denmark, 
but  was  killed  by  a  musket  ball  at  the  siege  of  the  little  fortress 
of  Friedrickshald.  There  was  suspicion  that  he  was  assassinated. 


PAGE  24]  NOTES  91 

The  following  lines  are  the  conclusion  of  Johnson's  description, 
beginning  after  the  defeat  of  Pultowa  :  — 

"  The  vanquished  hero  leaves  his  broken  bands, 
And  shows  his  miseries  in  distant  lands ; 
Condemned  a  needy  suppliant  to  wait, 
^Vhile  ladies  interpose,  and  slaves  debate. 

But  did  not  Chance  at  length  the  errour  mend? 
Did  no  subverted  empire  mark  his  end  ? 
Did  rival  monarchs  give  the  fatal  wound  ? 
Or  hostile  millions  press  him  to  the  ground  ? 
His  fall  was  destined  to  a  barren  strand, 
A  petty  fortress  and  a  dubious  hand ; 
He  left  the  name,  at  which  the  world  grew  pale, 
To  point  a  moral,  or  adorn  a  tale." 

19.    The  miseries  of  a  literary  life. 

"  Deign  on  the  passing  world  to  turn  thine  eyes, 
And  pause  awhile  from  letters  to  be  wise ; 
There  mark  what  ills  the  scholar's  life  assail, 
Toil,  envy,  want,  the  patron,  and  the  jail. 
See  nations,  slowly  wise  and  meanly  just, 
To  buried  merit  raise  the  tardy  bust. 
If  dreams  yet  flatter,  yet  again  attend, 
Hear  Lydiat's  life  and  Galileo's  end." 

Boswell  says  that  "patron"  (in  the  fourth  line)  was  orig- 
inally "garret,"  but  that  Johnson  made  the  change  after  his 
experience  with  Lord  Chesterfield.  This  great  poem  is  printed 
entire  in  Coates's  Fireside  Encyclopaedia  of  Poetry,  in  Kale's 
Longer  English  Poems,  and  in  Syle's  From  Milton  to  Tennyson. 

21.  Demosthenes  and  Cicero.  The  greatest  Athenian  orator 
was  Demosthenes  (384  or  385-322  B.C.),  and  the  greatest  Ro- 
man orator,  Cicero  (106-43,  B.C.)-  Neither  of  them  has  been 
equalled,  though  all  the  greatest  modern  orators  have  used  them 


92  NOTES  [PAGES  24-27 

as  models.  Most  schoolboys  are  familiar  with  the  Orations 
against  Catiline,  and  Demosthenes'  Oration  on  the  Crown  is 
universally  admitted  to  be  the  greatest  speech  ever  delivered. 

P.  25, 1.  3.  A  humble  stage  in  Goodman's  Fields.  A  theatre 
not  far  from  the  Tower  of  London,  built  in  1729.  Garrick  made 
the  success  of  the  house  in  1741. 

5.  Drury  Lane  Theatre.  First  opened  under  Killegrew's 
patent  in  1663,  and  rebuilt  several  times  since. 

P.  26, 1. 18.  The  versification  of  "  Irene."  Compare  the  fol- 
lowing lines  from  Johnson's  tragedy  with  the  extracts  from  his 
satires  given  above  :  — 

"  Arrayed  in  purer  light,  look  down  on  me 
In  pleasing  visions  and  assuasive  dreams." 

"  Can  brave  Leontius  call  for  airy  wonders, 
Which  cheats  interpret,  and  which  fools  regard?" 

"  Through  hissing  ages,  a  proverbial  coward, 
The  tale  of  women,  and  the  scorn  of  fools." 

Read  Macaulay's  Addison  (paragraphs  22-25)  for  a  good  de- 
scription of  this  sort  of  verse. 

19.  Benefit  nights.  The  author  of  a  play  had  the  profits  of 
every  third  night. 

P.  27,  1.  1.  The  Tatler  was  a  periodical  published  three 
times  a  week,  begun  by  Richard  Steele  (1672-1729)  in  1709. 
In  this  work  he  was  joined  by  his  friend,  Joseph  Addison  (1672- 
1719),  who  aided  him  still  more  effectively  in  the  Spectator,  a 
daily  literary  journal  of  higher  tone  and  character,  continued 
through  635  numbers.  Head  Macaulay's  Essay  on  Addison, 
and  also  Thackeray's  novel  Henry  Esmond,  for  descriptions  of 
these  celebrated  authors. 


PAGE  27]  NOTES  93 

16.  Richardson,  Samuel  (1689-1761).  The  first  great  Eng- 
lish novelist.  He  was  a  bookseller,  who  after  his  fiftieth  year 
wrote  the  novels  Pamela,  Clarissa  Harlovce,  and  Sir  Charles 
Grandison.  These  are  noted  for  their  minute  analysis  of  char- 
acter. They  enjoyed  great  popularity  in  their  day,  but  now, 
on  account  of  their  extreme  length,  are  rarely  read. 

18,  Young,  Edward  (1684  ?-1765).  A  noted  writer  in  his 
time,  but  now  almost  forgotten.  His  best  work  is  a  solemn 
poem  entitled  Xl<jht  Thoughts. 

18.  Hartley,  David  (1705-1757).  A  celebrated  mental  phi- 
losopher of  the  eighteenth  century.  His  chief  work  is  Observa- 
tions on  Man. 

20.  Dodington.  George  Bubb  Dodington,  afterward  Lord 
Melcombe,  controlled  six  seats  in  Parliament,  and  consequently 
had  to  be  reckoned  with  in  the  politics  of  the  time.  He  changed 
sides  several  times  merely  to  further  his  own  interests.  How- 
ever, he  was  a  man  of  taste  and  reading  and  is  accounted  the 
last  of  the  "patrons  of  literature."  For  some  time  he  exercised 
a  great  influence  over  Prince  Frederic,  perhaps  for  the  follow- 
ing reason.  Walpole  reports  that  the  prince  said  to  him: 
"Dodington  is  reckoned-  a  clever  man,  and  yet  I  have  got 
£5,000  from  him  which  he  will  never  see  again." 

24.  Prince  Frederic  was  the  eldest  son  of  George  II.,  and 
the  father  of  George  III.  He  was  bitterly  opposed  to  his  father, 
who  returned  his  dislike.  The  king  is  reported  to  have  said  : 
"  My  dear  first  born  is  the  greatest  ass,  and  the  greatest  liar, 
and  the  greatest  canaille,  and  the  greatest  beast  in  the  whole 
world,  and  I  heartily  wish  he  was  out  of  it."  Frederic's  place 
in  history  was  summed  up  by  the  following  epigram  current 
soon  after  his  death  :  — 


94  NOTES  [PAGES  28-30 

"  Here  lies  Fred 

Who  was  alive  and  is  dead.   .  .  . 
There's  no  more  to  be  said." 

P.  28,  1.  21.  The  purity  of  the  English  tongue.  "Some 
said  that  the  hard  words  in  the  Rambler  were  used  by  the 
author  to  render  his  Dictionary  indispensably  necessary."  — 
Burney. 

P.  29,  1.  7.  Sir  Roger,  etc.  Characters  or  papers  in  the 
Spectator. 

15.  Squire  Bluster,  etc.  Characters  or  papers  in  the 
Rambler. 

P.  30,  1.  2.  Which  she  accepted  with  but  little  gratitude. 
The  following,  which  Johnson  wrote  of  his  wife  shortly  after 
her  death,  tells  another  tale.  He  describes  her  as  a  woman 
"whom  none  who  were  capable  of  distinguishing  either  moral 
or  intellectual  excellence,  could  know  without  esteem  or  tender- 
ness. She  was  extensively  charitable  in  her  judgments  and 
opinions,  grateful  for  every  kindness  she  received,  and  willing 
to  impart  assistance  of  every  kind  to  all  whom  her  little  power 
enabled  her  to  benefit.  She  passed  through  many  months  of 
languour,  weakness,  and  decay,  without  a  single  murmur  of  im- 
patience, and  often  expressed  her  adoration  of  that  mercy  which 
granted  her  so  long  a  time  for  recollection  and  penitence."  — 
Johnson's  Works,  Vol.  IX.,  p.  623. 

5.  The  Gunnings.  Maria  and  Elizabeth,  the  two  beautiful 
daughters  of  a  poor  Irish  gentleman.  When  they  were  pre- 
sented to  the  lord  lieutenant  in  Dublin,  they  wore  dresses 
borrowed  from  Peg  Woffington,  the  celebrated  actress.  They 
went  to  London  in  1751  and  created  a  great  sensation. 
Crowds  followed  them  whenever  they  appeared  in  public,  and 


PASES  30-31]  NOTES  95 

they  were  generally  called  "  The  Beauties."  Maria,  who  mar- 
ried the  Earl  of  Coventry,  was  at  one  time  granted  a  guard  of 
soldiers  by  the  king  to  protect  her  from  the  too  fervent  admira- 
tion of  the  public.  Elizabeth  became  first  the  Duchess  of  Ham- 
ilton, and,  by  a  second  marriage,  Duchess  of  Argyll.  When  she 
was  presented  at  court  after  her  first  marriage,  the  anxiety  to 
see  her  was  so  great  that  "  the  noble  mob  in  the  drawing  room 
clambered  upon  chairs  and  tables  to  look  at  her."  Horace 
Walpole  mentions  the  sisters  frequently  in  his  letters. 

6.  Lady  Mary.  Daughter  of  the  Duke  of  Kingston  and  wife 
of  Mr.  E.  Wortley  Montague.  She  was  noted  for  her  wit  and 
for  her  intimacy  with  distinguished  men  of  letters.  Her  devoted 
friendship  and  subsequent  bitter  quarrel  with  Alexander  Pope 
gave  rise  to  one  of  the  most  famous  literary  feuds  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  The  delightful  Letters  which  she  wrote  from 
Constantinople  are  still  widely  read ;  and  we  owe  to  her  the 
practice  of  inoculation  which  she  had  witnessed  in  Turkey. 

6.  Her  opinion  of  his  writings.  Boswell  writes :  "Johnson 
told  me,  with  an  amiable  fondness,  a  little  pleasing  circum- 
stance relative  to  this  work  [the  Rambler].  Mrs.  Johnson,  in 
whose  judgment  and  taste  he  had  great  confidence,  said  to  him 
after  a  few  numbers  of  the  Rambler  had  come  out,  '  I  thought 
very  well  of  you  before  ;  but  I  did  not  imagine  you  could  have 
written  anything  equal  to  this.'  Distant  praise  from  whatever 
quarter  is  not  so  delightful  as  that  of  a  wife  whom  a  man  loves 
and  esteems." 

8.  The  Monthly  Review  was  the  leading  Whig  periodical  of 
the  day,  and  therefore  predisposed  to  be  sharply  critical  of  the 
outspoken  Tory,  Johnson. 

P.  31,  1.  8.    Dictator.    "  And  I  hereby  declare  that  I  make  a 


96  NOTES  [PAGE  31 

total  surrender  of  all  my  rights  and  privileges  in  the  English 
language  as  a  free-born  British  subject,  to  the  said  Mr.  John- 
son, during  the  term  of  his  dictatorship.  Nay  more.  1  will  not 
only  obey  him,  like  an  old  Roman,  as  my  dictator,  but,  like  a 
modern  Roman,  I  will  implicitly  believe  in  him  as  my  Pope, 
and  hold  him  to  be  infallible  while  in  the  chair,  but  no  longer." 
Chesterfield's  paper  in  the  World,  December  5,  1754. 
15.  In  a  letter.  The  famous  letter  is  as  follows :  — 

To  THE  RIGHT  HONOURABLE  THE  EARL  OF  CHESTERFIELD. 

February  7,  1755. 
My  Lord, 

I  have  been  lately  informed  by  the  proprietor  of  the  World 
that  two  papers  in  which  my  Dictionary  is  recommended  to  the 
public,  were  written  by  your  Lordship.  To  be  so  distinguished 
is  an  honour  which,  being  very  little  accustomed  to  favours  from 
the  great,  I  know  not  well  how  to  receive,  or  in  what  terms  to 
acknowledge. 

When,  upon  some  slight  encouragement,  I  first  visited  your 
Lordship,  I  was  overpowered,  like  the  rest  of  mankind,  by  the 
enchantment  of  your  address ;  and  could  not  forbear  to  wish 
that  I  might  boast  myself  le  vainqueur  du  rainqiieitr  de  la  ten-e 
—  that  I  might  obtain  that  regard  for  which  I  saw  the  world  con- 
tending ;  but  I  found  my  attendance  so  little  encouraged  that 
neither  pride  nor  modesty  would  suffer  me  to  continue  it. 
When  I  had  once  addressed  your  lordship  in  public,  I  had 
exhausted  all  the  art  of  pleasing  which  a  retired  and  uncourtly 
scholar  can  possess.  I  have  done  all  that  I  could  ;  and  no  man 
is  well  pleased  to  have  his  all  neglected,  be  it  ever  so  little. 

Seven  years,  my  Lord,  have  now  passed,  since  I  waited  in 
your  outward  rooms  or  was  repulsed  from  your  door ;  during 
which  time  I  have  been  pushing  on  my  work  through  difficulties 
of  which  it  is  useless  to  complain,  and  have  brought  it  at  last 
to  the  verge  of  publication  without  one  act  of  assistance,  one 
word  of  encouragement,  or  one  smile  of  favour.  Such  treatment 
I  did  not  expect,  for  I  never  had  a  patron  before. 


PAGES  31-32]  NOTES  97 

The  shepherd  in  Virgil  grew  at  last  acquainted  with  Love, 
and  found  him  a  native  of  the  rocks. 

Is  not  a  patron,  my  Lord,  one  who  looks  with  unconcern  on 
a  man  struggling  for  life  in  the  water,  and  when  he  has  reached 
ground  encumbers  him  with  help  ?  The  notice  which  you  have 
been  pleased  to  take  of  my  labours,  had  it  been  early,  had  been 
kind  ;  but  it  has  been  delayed  till  I  am  indifferent,  and  cannot 
enjoy  it ;  till  I  am  solitary,  and  cannot  impart  it ;  till  I  am 
known,  and  do  not  want  it.  I  hope  it  is  no  very  cynical  asper- 
ity not  to  confess  obligations  where  no  benefit  has  been  received, 
or  to  be  unwilling  that  the  public  should  consider  me  as  owing 
that  to  a  patron  which  Providence  has  enabled  me  to  do  for 
myaeli. 

Having  carried  on  my  work  thus  far  with  so  little  obligation 
to  any  favourer  of  learning,  I  shall  not  be  disappointed  though  I 
should  conclude  it,  if  less  be  possible,  with  less ;  for  I  have 
been  long  wakened  from  that  dream  of  hope  in  which  I  once 
boasted  myself  with  so  much  exultation,  my  Lord, 

Your  Lordship's  most  humble,  most  obedient  servant, 

SAM.  JOHNSON. 


23.  Home  Tooke  (1736-1812).  A  celebrated  etymologist 
and  "Whig  political  writer.  In  1775  he  was  fined  and  im- 
prisoned for  publishing  an  advertisement  in  which  he  accused 
the  king's  troops  of  barbarously  murdering  the  Americans  at 
Lexington.  He  was  a  great  conversationalist,  but  his  fame 
rests  on  his  Diversions  of  Purley.  a  work  on  the  etymology  and 
analysis  of  English  words. 

P.  32,  1.  16.  Scarcely  a  Teutonic  language.  English,  Ger- 
man, Dutch,  and  the  Scandinavian  dialects  form  the  Teutonic 
language  group.  Macaulay's  statement  here  is  overdrawn. 
More  than  seventy  per  cent  of  the  words  in  Johnson's  most 
pompous  writings  are  of  Teutonic  origin.  It  may  interest  the 
H 


98  2TOTES  [PAGES  32-34 

student  to  examine  in  this  regard  the  extracts  from  the  writings 
of  Johnson  given  in  these  notes. 

17.  Junius  and  Skinner.  "  For  the  Teutonick  etymologies  I 
am  commonly  indebted  to  Junius  and  Skinner  .  .  .  Junius 
appears  to  have  excelled  in  extent  of  learning  and  Skinner  in 
rectitude  of  understanding.  .  .  .  Skinner  is  often  ignorant  but 
never  ridiculous  :  Junius  is  always  full  of  knowledge,  but  his 
variety  distracts  the  judgement,  and  his  learning  is  very  fre- 
quently disgraced  by  his  absurdities."  — Johnson's  Works,  Vol. 
V.,  p.  29.  Francis  Junius  the  younger  was  born  at  Heidelberg 
in  1589,  and  died  at  Windsor  in  1678.  His  Etymologicum 
Anglicanum  was  not  published  till  1743.  The  Etymologicon 
Linguae  Anglicance  of  Stephen  Skinner  (1623-1667)  was  pub- 
lished in  1671. 

P.  33,  1.  15.  Jenyns,  Soame  (1704-1787).  A  somewhat 
noted  wit  and  minor  poet.  His  first  poem  was  the  Art  of 
Dancing.  Originally  a  mild  sceptic,  he  later  was  converted, 
and  wrote  one  of  the  popular  eighteenth-century  works  on  the 
Evidences  of  Christianity.  He  is  now  remembered  only  on 
account  of  Johnson's  review  of  his  paper  on  the  Origin  of  Evil. 
See  Stephen's  English  Thought  in  the  Eighteenth  Century, 
Ch.  VII.,  Sees.  15-17. 

P.  34,  1.  11.  "  Rasselas."  The  original  title  given  by  John- 
son to  the  publisher  was,  The  Choice  of  Life,  or  the  History  of 

Prince  of  Abyssinia.  It  was  written  in  January,  175'.), 

and  published  probably  before  April.  There  were  eight 
editions  in  Johnson's  lifetime,  and  it  was  translated  into  almost 
every  modern  language.  After  the  sixth  edition,  the  title  was 
changed  to  Basselas.  It  is  the  most  complete  expression  of 
his  message  to  the  world.  (See  Appendix,  p.  187.)  The  first 


PAGES  34-35]  NOTES  99 

sentence,  which  is  often  quoted,  is  an  excellent  example  of 
Johnson's  weighty  style. 

"Ye  who  listen  with  credulity  to  the  whispers  of  fancy,  and 
pursue  with  eagerness  the  phantoms  of  hope,  who  expect  that 
age  will  perform  the  promises  of  youth,  and  that  the  deficiencies 
of  the  present  day  will  be  supplied  by  the  morrow,  attend  to 
the  history  of  Rasselas,  Prince  of  Abyssinia." 

13.  Miss  Lydia  Languish  is  the  heroine  of  Sheridan's 
comedy,  the  Rivals,  —  a  young  beauty  much  given  to  reading 
sentimental  novels  and  to  indulging  in  romantic  fancies. 

22.  The  Critical  Review  was  the  leading  Tory  periodical  of 
the  day. 

P.  35,  1.  20.  The  Happy  Valley  was  the  place  where,  accord- 
ing to  Johnson's  tale,  the  royal  children  of  Abyssinia  were 
educated. 

21  Newton,  Sir  Isaac  (1642-1727).  The  greatest  mathe- 
matician and  natural  philosopher  of  modern  times. 

24.  Bruce's  Travels.  Macaulay  implies  that  Johnson  could 
have  informed  himself  of  the  real  character  of  the  natives  of 
Abyssinia.  But  James  Bruce  started  on  his  voyage  to  Abyssinia 
in  1768  and  returned  in  1773,  fourteen  years  after  the  publi- 
cation of  Rasselas;  his  Travels  were  published  six  years  after 
Johnson's  death.  When  Johnson  wrote  his  tale,  Abyssinia 
was  a  sort  of  romantic  unknown  land,  for  Lobo's  book  (see 
note,  p.  9,  1.  7)  was  hardly  more  than  a  clever  fiction.  At  that 
time  little  was  known  of  Asiatic  or  African  peoples.  Few 
Europeans  had  even  studied  their  languages,  and  it  was  a  com- 
mon thing  for  eighteenth-century  writers  to  lay  the  scenes  of 
their  tales  in  these  half-known  lands,  in  order  to  be  freer  in 
their  satire  and  criticism  of  their  own  countries,  and  to  escape 
the  dangers  of  the  censorship.  No  attempt  was  made  to  depict 


100  NOTES  [PACKS  35-36 

accurately  the  manners  and  customs  of  lands  almost  as  un- 
known as  "Lilliput"  and  "  Brobdingnag."  Johnson  was  but 
following  the  fashion  of  the  time,  and  had  any  one  suggested 
that  he  had  described  Egypt  and  Cairo  incorrectly,  he  would 
have  crushed  the  "puppy"  with  one  of  his  "rhinoceros 
laughs." 

P.  36,  1.  3.  Burke,  Edmund  (1728?-1797).  The  most  noted 
orator  of  his  time  as  well  as  an  essayist  of  great  powers.  His 
best  essays  are  those  on  the  Sublime  and  the  Beautiful  and  on 
the  French  Revolution.  His  greatest  speeches  are  Concilia- 
tion with  America  and  the  Impeachment  of  Warren  Hastings. 
Although  a  fervid  Whig,  he  and  Johnson  were  firm  friends. 
There  is  an  interesting  sketch  of  Burke  in  Macaulay's  Essay  on 
Warren  Hastings. 

4.  Mrs.  Lennox,  Charlotte  (1720-1804).  Daughter  of  Lieu- 
tenant-governor Ramsay  of  New  York.  At  the  age  of  fifteen 
she  went  to  England  and  devoted  herself  to  literature,  writing 
novels  and  dramas  now  forgotten.  She  was  on  terms  of  inti- 
macy with  Richardson  and  Johnson.  Hawkins  writes  :  -'One 
evening  at  the  club  Johnson  proposed  to  celebrate  the  birthday 
of  Mrs.  Lennox's  literary  child,  as  he  called  her  book,  by  a 
whole  night  spent  in  festivity.  Our  supper  was  elegant,  and 
Johnson  had  directed  that  a  magnificent  hot  apple  pie  should 
make  a  part  of  it,  and  this  he  would  have  stuck  with  bay  leaves, 
because,  forsooth,  Mrs.  Lennox  was  an  authoress,  and  had 
written  verses,  and  further  he  had  prepared  for  her  a  crown  of 
laurel,  with  which,  but  not  till  he  had  invoked  the  Muses  by 
some  ceremonies  of  his  own  invention,  he  enriched  her  brows. 
About  five,  Johnson's  face  shone  with  meridian  splendour,  though 
his  drink  had  been  only  lemonade." 


PAGES  36-37]  NOTES  101 

In  the  Dictionary  Johnson  cited  a  passage  to  illustrate  the 
word  talent  from  her  best  novel,  the  Female  Quixote.  And 
he  used  very  few  citations  from  contemporary  writers. 

5.  Mrs.  Sheridan  (1724-1766)  was  the  mother  of  the  dram- 
atist and  orator  Richard  Brinsley  Sheridan.  She  was  also 
a  novelist  and  dramatist  of  vogue.  Johnson  spent  many 
pleasant  hours  in  her  society,  she  being,  as  Bos  well  says,  "a 
most  agreeable  companion  to  an  intellectual  man." 

19.  The  poet  who  made  Hector  quote  Aristotle,  etc.  See 
Shakespeare's  Troilus  and  Cressida,  Act  II.,  Sc.  ii.,  and  Winter's 
Tale,  Act  II.,  Sc.  i.,  and  Act  V.,  Sc.  ii.  Hector  was  the  hero  of 
Troy  in  the  legendary  Trojan  War,  supposed  to  have  taken 
place  in  the  twelfth  Century  B.C.  Aristotle,  one  of  the  greatest 
of  Greek  philosophers,  lived  in  the  fourth  century  B.C.  Julio 
Romano  (1492-1546)  was  an  Italian  painter  and  Raphael's 
favorite  pupil.  At  Delphi  was  the  most  famous  oracle  of 
ancient  Greece. 

P.  37,  1.  8.  Language  so  coarse,  etc.  "  Coarse  "  is  altogether 
too  strong  a  word  to  apply  to  Johnson's  language,  which  was 
noted,  both  in  conversation  and  writing,  for  its  freedom  from 
all  obscenity  and  profanity  —  a  remarkable  thing  in  those  days. 
The  definition  referred  to  is:  "Excise:  A  hateful  tax  levied 
upon  commodities  and  adjudged  not  by  the  common  judges  of 
property,  but  by  wretches  hired  by  those  to  whom  excise  is  paid. " 

10.  The  Lord  Privy  Seal  is  the  title  of  the  officer  who  has 
the  custody  of  the  Privy  Seal  which  is  appended  to  British 
documents  not  important  enough  to  require  the  Great  Seal.  The 
lord  referred  to  is  Lord  Gower.  Boswell  reports  that  Johnson 
said  to  him:  "You  know,  Sir,  Lord  Gower  forsook  the  old 
Jacobite  interest.  When  I  came  to  the  word  Renegado,  after 


102  NOTES  [PAGES  37-38 

telling  that  it  meant  'one  who  deserts  to  the  enemy,  arevolter,' 
I  added,  sometimes  we  say  a  Gower.  Thus  it  went  to  the  press : 
but  the  printer  had  more  wit  than  I,  and  struck  it  out." 

20.  The  city  was  becoming  mutinous.     London  has  always 
been  the  stronghold  of  the  opposition  to  the  extension  of  the 
royal  prerogatives. 

21.  Cavendishes  and   Bentincks,    etc.      The    Cavendishes 
(Dukes  of  Devonshire)  and  the  Bentincks  (Dukes  of  Portland) 
were    prominent    Whig    families,  closely  intermarried.      The 
Somersets  (Dukes  of  Beaufort)  and  the  Wyndhams  (Earls  of 
Egremont),  also  closely  connected,  were  equally  noted  on  the 
Tory  side.     George  I.  and  George  II.  had  left  the  government 
of  England  practically  in  the  hands  of  the  great  Whig  families 
to  whom  they  owed  the  throne.     But  George  III.  (1760-1820) 
had  been  brought  up  by  his  mother  with  the  idea  that  he  should 
be  a  real  king,  not  a  creature  of  Parliament ;   that  he  should 
rule,  not  merely  reign.     His  plan  was  to  break  the  Whig  power 
by  drawing  the  disaffected  members  of  that  party,  together  with 
some  of  the  leading  Tories,  into  a  new  party  which  was  known 
as  the  "  King's  Friends."     Although  George  was  -i  wretchedly 
educated,  and  his  natural  powers  were  of  the  meanest  sort.1' 
he  succeeded  for  a  time,  had  his  own  obstinate  way,  and  as  a 
consequence  lost  the  American   Colonies.     Read   Macaulay's 
Essay  on  The  Earl  of  Chatham,  Green's  History,  Ch.  X.,  Sec. 
II.,  and  Burke's  Speech  on  Conciliation  with  America. 

23.  Lord  Bute  (1713-1792)  was  prime  minister  from  May, 
1762,  to  April,  1763.  His  government  is  notorious  for  being  one 
of  the  most  unpopular  that  ever  held  office  in  England. 

P.  38,  1.  12.  The  printer's  devil  or  the  sheriff's  officer. 
One  of  the  duties  of  the  youngest  apprentice  in  the  printing 


PAGES  38-39]  NOTES  103 

offices  is  to  "run  after  copy,"  and  so  he  would  naturally  be  a 
terror  to  Johnson  who  generally  did  his  writing  at  full  speed  at 
the  last  moment.  The  sheriff's  officers  had,  as  we  know,  arrested 
Johnson  several  times  for  debt.  The  following  extract  from 
Bosicell  gives  Johnson's  reasons  for  practically  ceasing  to  write : 
..."  JOHNSON.  'No,  Sir,  I  am  not  obliged  to  do  any  more. 
No  man  is  obliged  to  do  as  much  as  he  can  do.  A  man  is  to 
have  part  of  his'  life  to  himself.  If  a  soldier  has  fought  a  good 
many  campaigns,  he  is  not  to  be  blamed  if  he  retires  to  ease  and 
tranquillity.  A  physician  who  has  practised  long  in  a  great 
city  may  be  excused  if  he  retires  to  a  small  town  and  takes 
less  practice.  Now,  Sir,  the  good  I  can  do  by  my  conversation 
bears  the  same  proportion  to  the  good  I  can  do  by  my  writings, 
that  the  practice  of  a  physician,  retired  to  a  small  town,  does 
to  his  practice  in  a  great  city.'  BOSWELL.  'But  I  wonderr 
Sir,  you  have  not  more  pleasure  in  writing  than  in  not  writing.* 
JOHNSON.  '  Sir,  you  may  wonder.'  " 

P.  39,  1.  15.  Cock  Lane.  The  following  account  is  from 
Hare's  Walks  in  London,  Vol.  I.,  p.  204  seq. :  — 

"Till  a  few  years  ago  people  frequently  came  to  this  crypt 
[of  St.  John's  church,  Clerkenwall]  to  visit  the  coffin  (now 
buried)  of  '  Scratching  Fanny  the  Cock  Lane  Ghost,'  which 
had  excited  the  utmost  attention  in  1762,  being  as  Walpole 
said,  not  a  apparition,  but  an  aiidition.  It  was  supposed 
that  the  spirit  of  a  young  lady  poisoned  by  a  lover  to  whom  she 
had  bequeathed  her  property,  came  to  visit,  invisibly,  but  with 
very  mysterious  noises,  a  girl  named  Parsons  who  lived  in  Cock 
Lane  (between  Smithfield  and  Holborn)  and  was  daughter  to 
clerk  of  St.  Sepulchre's  church.  Horace  Walpole  went  to  see 
the  victim,  with  the  Duke  of  York,  Lady  Northumberland, 
Lady  Mary  Coke,  and  Lord  Hertford,  but  after  waiting  till  half- 
past  one  in  the  morning  in  a  suffocating  room  with  fifty  people 


104  NOTES  [PAGE  39 

crowded  into  it,  he  was  told  that  the  ghost  would  not  come  that 
night  till  seven  in  the  morning,  'when,'  says  Walpole,  'there 
were  only  prentices  and  old  women.'  At  length  the  ghost  having 
promised  by  an  affirmative  knock,  that  she  would  attend  any  one 
of  her  visitors  in  the  vaults  of  St.  John's  church,  and  there  knock 
upon  her  coffin,  an  investigation  was  made,  of  which  Dr.  John- 
son, who  was  present,  has  left  a  description.  .  .  .  The  failure 
of  the  investigation  led  to  the  discovery  that  the  father  of  the 
girl  who  was  the  supposed  object  of  spiritual  visitation  had 
arranged  the  plot  in  order  to  frighten  the  man  accused  of  mur- 
der into  remitting  a  loan  which  he  had  received  from  him  whilst 
he  was  lodging  in  his  house.  Parsons  was  imprisoned  for  a 
year,  and  placed  three  times  in  the  pillory,  where,  however, 
instead  of  maltreating  him,  the  London  mob  raised  a  subscrip- 
tion in  his  favour." 

Of  this  incident  Boswell  says:  "  The  real  fact  then  is,  that 
Johnson  had  a  very  philosophical  mind  and  such  a  rational  re- 
spect for  testimony,  as  to  make  him  submit  his  understanding 
to  what  was  authentically  proved,  though  he  could  not  com- 
prehend why  it  was  so.  Being  thus  disposed  he  was  willing 
to  inquire  into  the  truth  of  any  relation  of  supernatural 
agency,  a  general  belief  which  has  prevailed  in  all  nations  and 
ages.  But  so  far  was  he  from  being  the  dupe  of  implicit  faith, 
that  he  examined  the  matter  with  a  jealous  attention,  and  no 
man  was  more  ready  to  refute  its  falsehood  when  he  had  dis- 
covered it."  And  "Johnson  was  one  of  those  by  whom  the 
imposture  was  discovered.  The  story  had  become  so  popular 
that  he  thought  it  should  be  investigated." 

Johnson's  account  of  the  investigation  written  for  the  Gentle- 
man's Magazine,  closed  with  these  words:  "  It  is  therefore  the 
opinion  of  the  whole  assembly,  that  the  child  has  some  art  of 
making  or  counterfeiting  a  particular  noise,  and  that  there  is  no 


PAGES  39-40]  NOTES  105 

agency  of  any  higher  cause."  The  student  should  examine  the 
passage  in  the  essay  carefully  to  see  how  Macaulay  manages  to 
imply  that  Johnson  was  duped.  See  Hill's  Boswell,  Vol.  L,  p. 
407,  note  ;  the  Cock  Lane  Ghost,  by  A.  Lang  ;  and  the  Cock  Lane 
Ghost,  by  Howard  Pyle,  in  Harper's  Magazine,  August,  1893. 
23.  Churchill,  Charles  (1731-1764)  a  popular  poet  and 
satirist,  noted  for  his  profligacy  as  well  as  his  stinging  wit. 
His  Bosciad  achieved  an  immense  vogue.  The  following  are 
some  of  the  lines  in  Churchill's  Ghost  which  are  referred  to  by 
Macaulay,  and  are  an  excellent  example  of  the  personal  satire 
of  the  eighteenth  century. 

"  Pomposo,  insolent  and  loud, 
Vain  idol  of  the  scribbling  crowd. 

Who,  proudly  seized  of  learning's  throne, 
Now  damns  all  learning  but  his  own. 

But  makes  each  sentence  current  pass 
With  puppy,  coxcomb,  scoundrel,  ass. 

"Who  to  increase  his  native  strength 
Draws  words  six  syllables  in  length, 
With  which,  assisted  with  a  frown 
By  way  of  club,  he  knocks  us  down. 

He  for  subscribers  baits  his  hook, 

And  takes  their  cash  —  but  where's  the  book? 

No  matter  where  —  wise  fear,  we  know, 

Forbids  the  robbing  of  a  foe ; 

But  what,  to  serve  our  private  ends, 

Forbids  the  cheating  of  our  friends?" 

P.  40, 1.  15.  Polonins.  See  Shakespeare's  Hamlet.  W.  Tooke 
said  of  Johnson's  Shakespeare:  "The  extraordinary  merit  of 
the  preface  and  critical  observations  atoned  for  the  meagreness 


106  NOTES  [PAGE  40 

of  the  notes."    The  note  on  Polonius,  Act  II.,  Sc.  IV.,  is  as 
follows :  — 

Polonius  is  a  man  bred  in  courts,  exercised  in  business, 
stored  with  observation,  confident  of  his  knowledge,  proud  of 
his  eloquence,  and  declining  into  dotage.  His  mode  of  oratory 
is  truly  represented  as  designed  to  ridicule  the  practice  of  those 
times,  of  prefaces  that  made  no  introduction,  and  of  method 
that  embarrassed  rather  than  explained.  This  part  of  his  char- 
acter is  accidental,  the  rest  is  natural.  Such  a  man  is  positive 
and  confident,  because  he  knows  that  his  mind  was  once  strong, 
and  knows  not  that  it  has  become  weak.  Such  a  man  excels  in 
general  principles,  but  fails  in  the  particular  application.  He 
is  knowing  in  retrospect,  and  ignorant  in  foresight.  While  he 
depends  upon  his  memory,  and  can  draw  from  his  repositories 
of  knowledge,  he  utters  weighty  sentences,  and  gives  useful 
counsel  ;  but  as  the  mind  in  its  enfeebled  state  cannot  be  kept 
long  busy  and  intent,  the  old  man  is  subject  to  sudden  derelic- 
tion of  his  faculties,  he  loses  the  order  of  his  ideas,  and  entangles 
himself  in  his  own  thoughts,  till  he  recovers  the  leading  prin- 
ciple, and  falls  again  into  his  former  train.  The  idea  of  dotage 
encroaching  upon  wisdom,  will  solve  all  the  phsenornena  of  the 
character  of  Polonius. 

17.  Wilhelm  Meister  is  Goethe's  greatest  prose  work, — a  novel 
he  was  years  in  writing,  and  which  contains  some  of  his  ripest 
thoughts.  Among  these  is  his  world-famous  criticism  on  Hamlet, 
which  is  scattered  through  Book  IV.  The  concluding  paragraph 
from  the  characterization  of  Hamlet  in  Ch.  XIII.  will  give  an 
idea  of  the  whole  :  — 

"  A  lovely,  pure,  noble,  and  most  moral  nature  without  the 
strength  of  nerve  which  forms  a  hero,  sinks  beneath  a  burden 
which  it  cannot  bear  and  must  not  cast  away.  All  duties  are 
holy  for  him  ;  the  present  one  is  too  hard.  Impossibilities  have 
been  required  of  him  ;  not  in  themselves  impossibilities,  but 


PAGES  40-42]  NOTES  107 

such  for  him.  He  winds,  and  turns,  and  torments  himself  ; 
he  advances  and  recoils  ;  is  ever  put  in  mind,  ever  puts  himself 
in  mind,  at  last  does  all  but  lose  his  purpose  from  his  thoughts, 
yet  still  without  recovering  his  peace  of  mind."  —  Carlyle's 
Translation  of  Wilhelm  ^leister. 

18.  It  would  be  difficult  to  name,  etc.  The  honest  Johnson 
did  not  slur  his  work,  though  later  Shakespearian  commentators 
have  naturally  gone  far  beyond  him.  He  says  ( If'ori's,  Vol.  V., 
p.  152):  "I  have  indeed  disappointed  no  opinion  more  than 
my  own  :  yet  I  have  endeavoured  to  perform  my  task  with  no 
slight  solicitude.  Xot  a  single  passage  in  the  whole  work  has 
appeared  to  me  corrupt  which  I  have  not  attempted  to  restore  ; 
or  obscure  which  I  have  not  attempted  to  illustrate." 

P.  41,  1.  12.  Ben.  Ben  Jonson  (1574  P-1637)  was,  next  to 
Shakespeare,  the  greatest  dramatist  of  the  Elizabethan  Age. 
Every  one  knows  his  beautiful  song,  "Drink  to  me  only  with 
thine  eyes,"  and  his  lines  to  the  memory  of  Shakespeare  which 
contain  the  often-quoted  verse, — 

"He  was  not  of  an  age,  but  for  all  time." 

20.  .aSschylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides  were  the  three 
greatest  poets  of  the  ancient  Greek  drama,  which  reached  its 
perfection  at  Athens  in  the  fifth  century  B.C. 

25.  Massinger,  Ford,  Decker,  Webster,  Marlow,  Beaumont, 
and  Fletcher  were  English  dramatists  contemporary  with  Shake- 
speare and  Jonson.  Decker  is  usually  spelled  Dekker. 

P.  42,  1.  9.  Doctor's  degree.  In  1755  the  degree  of  M.A.  was 
conferred  upon  Johnson  by  Oxford  on  account  of  the  Dictionary 
which  was  about  to  appear.  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  gave  him 
the  degree  of  LL.D.  in  1765.  The  Oxford  degree  of  Doctor  of 
Laws  was  granted  in  1775,  through  the  influence  ~of  the  prime 


108  NOTES  [PAGES  42-44 

minister,  Lord  North,  who  was  Chancellor  of  the  University,  as 
a  reward  for  Johnson's  political  writings  in  support  of  North's 
policies.  Boswell  says:  "It  is  remarkable  that  he  never,  as 
far  as  I  knew,  assumed  his  title  of  Doctor,  but  called  himself 
Mr.  Johnson." 

10.  The   Royal   Academy  of  Fine  Arts  was  founded  by  a 
charter  of  George  III.  in  1768.     The  following  year  Johnson 
was  appointed  Professor  of  Ancient  Literature,  —  an  honorary 
office,  with  no  salary. 

P.  44,  1.  5.  A  club.  Boswell  writes:  "Soon  after  his 
[Johnson's]  return  to  London,  which  was  in  February,  was 
founded  that  CLUB  which  existed  so  long  without  a  name,  but 
at  Mr.  Garrick's  funeral  became  distinguished  by  the  title  of 
THE  LITERARY  CLUB.  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  had  the  merit  of 
being  the  first  proposer  of  it,  to  which  Johnson  acceded,  and  the 
original  members  were  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  Dr.  Johnson,  Mr. 
Edmund  Burke,  Dr.  Nugent,  Mr.  Beauclerk,  Mr.  Langton,  Dr. 
Goldsmith,  Mr.  Chamier,  and  Sir  John  Hawkins.  They  met  at 
the  Turk's  Head  in  Gerrard  Street,  Soho,  one  evening  in  every 
week,  at  seven,  and  generally  continued  their  conversation  till 
a  pretty  late  hour.  The  club  has  been  gradually  increased  to 
its  present  number,  thirty-five  [1791].  After  about  ten  years, 
instead  of  supping  weekly,  it  was  resolved  to  dine  together  once 
a  fortnight  during  the  meeting  of  Parliament." 

11.  The  trunk  maker  and  the  pastry  cook.     Before  wrapping 
paper  was  made  cheaply  out  of  straw  and  wood  pulp,  the  sheets 
of  unsalable  books  were  used  for  lining  trunks  and  wrapping 
up  confectionery. 

13.  Goldsmith,  Oliver  (1728-1774)  the  most  delightful 
author  of  his  age.  His  poems,  the  Traveller  and  the  Deserted 


PAGES  44-45]  NOTES  109 

Village,  and  his  novel,  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  are  still  widely 
read  ;  while  his  comedy,  She  Stoops  to  Conquer,  still  holds  the 
stage.  Read  Macaulay's  Life  of  Goldsmith,  in  the  Encyclopedia 
Britannica.  The  Jessamy  Bride,  a  novel  by  F.  Frankfort  Moore, 
though  rather  slight  in  workmanship,  has  Goldsmith  as  its  hero, 
and  contains  some  bright  sketches  of  Johnson,  and  the  leading 
members  of  "  The  Literary  Club." 

15.  Reynolds.  Sir  Joshua  (1723-1792).     The  best  painter  of 
England  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  a  noted  writer  on  art. 
His  portraits  are  especially  remarkable.     He  was  the  first  presi- 
dent of  the  Royal  Academy,  and  was  knighted  by  the  king  on 
his  appointment. 

16.  Gibbon,  Edward  (1737-1794).     His  Decline  and  Fall  of 
the  Roman  Empire  ranks  among  the  greatest  histories  ever 
written,  and  is  certainly  the  best  ever  written  in  English. 

17.  Jones.  Sir  William  (1746-1794).     The  first  great  English 
Oriental  scholar,  and  founder  of   the  Royal  Asiatic  Society. 
His  most  famous  work  is  his  translation  of  the  beautiful  San- 
scrit drama,  Sakuntala,  which  introduced  European  scholars  to 
a  new  and  wonderful  world. 

24.  Bennet  Langton  (1737-1801),  though  a  gentleman  of  in- 
dependent means  and  a  great  student,  published  nothing,  yet 
Mrs.  Piozzi  writes  :  "I  remember  when  to  have  Langton  at  a 
man's  house  stamped  him  at  once  as  a  literary  character." 
Boswell  says  :  "  Johnson  was  not  less  ready  to  love  Mr.  Langton 
for  his  being  of  a  very  ancient  family,  for  I  have  heard  him  say 
with  pleasure  '  Langton,  Sir,  has  a  grant  of  free  warren  from 
Henry  the  Second ;  and  Cardinal  Stephen  Langton  of  King 
John's  reign  was  of  his  family.'  " 

P.  45,  1.  1.   Topham  Beauclerk  (1739-1780)  was  the  only  son 


110  NOTES  [PAGE  45 

of  Lord  Sidney  Beauclerk,  fifth  son  of  the  first  Duke  of  St. 
Alban's,  and  consequently  a  great-grandson  of  Charles  II.  and 
Nell  Gwynn.  He  was  a  great  lover  of  literature,  and  at  his 
death  left  a  library  of  thirty  thousand  volumes  especially  rich 
in  English  drama  and  English  history.  Boswell  says:  "Mr. 
Beauclerk's  being  of  the  St.  Albau's  family,  and  having  in 
some  particulars  a  resemblance  to  Charles  the  Second,  con- 
tributed in  Johnson's  imagination  to  throw  a  lustre  upon 
his  other  qualities,  and  in  a  short  time,  the  moral,  pious 
Johnson,  and  the  gay,  dissipated  Beauclerk,  were  companions. 
'  What  a  coalition  ! '  (said  Garrick  when  he  heard  of  this  ;  ) 
'  I  shall  have  my  old  friend  to  bail  out  of  the  Round-house.' 
But  I  can  bear  testimony  that  it  was  a  very  agreeable  associa- 
tion. Beauclerk  was  too  polite,  and  valued  learning  and 
wit  too  much,  to  offend  Johnson  by  sallies  of  wit  and  licentious- 
ness ;  and  Johnson  delighted  in  the  good  qualities  of  Beauclerk, 
and  hoped  to  correct  the  evil.  Innumerable  were  the  scenes  in 
which  Johnson  was  amused  by  these  young  men.  [Boswell 
gives  a  most  entertaining  account  of  a  '  frisk '  of  Johnson  with 
Langton  and  Beauclerk,  who  once  after  midnight  routed  the 
grave  philosopher  out  of  his  bed  and  took  him  about  the  town.] 
Beauclerk  could  take  more  liberty  with  him  than  anybody  with 
•whom  I  ever  saw  him ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  Beauclerk  was  not 
spared  by  his  respectable  companion,  when  reproof  was  proper." 
1(5.  James  Boswell  (1740-1796).  Macaulay  is  extreme  in  his 
judgment  of  Boswell,  or  "  Bozzy,"  as  Johnson  affectionately 
called  him.  In  his  essay  on  Croker's  Edition  of  Boswell,  he  is 
even  more  severe.  Carlyle,  in  his  essay  on  Boswell's  Johnson, 
•while  admitting  gross  defects,  does  justice  to  Boswell's  un- 
doubted merits.  The  student  should  read  both  essays,  of  which 


PAGE  45] 


NOTES 


111 


copious  extracts  are  given  in  the  Appendix.     A  part  of  the  two 
views  of  Boswell  is  given  here. 


"  We  are  not  sure  that  there 
is  in  the  whole  history  of  the 
human  intellect  so  strange  a 
phenomenon  as  this  book, 
Many  of  the  greatest  men 
that  ever  lived  have  written 
biography.  Boswell  was  one 
of  the  smallest  men  that  ever 
lived,  and  he  has  beaten  them 
all.  He  was,  if  we  are  to  give 
any  credit  to  his  own  account, 
or  to  the  united  testimony  of 
all  who  knew  him,  a  man  of 
the  meanest  and  feeblest  in- 
tellect." 

"  Of  the  talents  which  ordi- 
narily raise  men  to  eminence 
as  writers,  Boswell  had  abso- 
lutely none.  There  is  not  in 
all  his  books  a  single  remark 
of  his  own  on  literature,  poli- 
tics, religion,  or  society,  which 
is  not  either  commonplace  or 
absurd." 

"  That  such  a  man  should 
have  written  one  of  the  best 
books  in  the  world  is  strange 
enough.  But  this  is  not  all. 
Many  persons  who  have  con- 
ducted themselves  foolishly  in 
active  life,  and  whose  conver- 
sation has  indicated  no  supe- 


I  "  Boswell  was  a  person 
whose  mean  or  bad  qualities 

]  lay  open  to  the  general  eye ; 

i  visible,  palpable  to  the  dullest. 

i   His  good  qualities,  again,  be- 

|  longed  not  to  the  Time  he 
lived  in  ;  were  far  from  com- 
mon then  ;  indeed,  in  such  a 
degree,  were  almost  unexam- 
pled ;  not  recognizable  there- 
fore by  every  one;  nay. apt  even 
(so  strange  had  they  grown) 
to  be  confounded  with  the  very 
vices  they  lay  contiguous  to, 
and  had  sprung  out  of." 

"Thus  does  poor  Bozzy 
stand  out  to  us  as  an  ill- 
assorted,  glaring  mixture  of 
the  highest  and  the  lowest. 
What,  indeed,  is  man's  life 
generally  but  a  kind  of  beast- 
godhood ;  the  god  in  us  tri- 
umphing more  and  more  over 
the  beast ;  striving  more  and 
more  to  subdue  it  under  his 
feet  ?  " 

"Kay.  sometimes  a  strange 
enough  hypothesis  has  been 
started  of  him  ;  as  if  it  were 
in  virtue  even  of  these  same 
bad  qualities  that  he  did  his 
good  work ;  as  if  it  were  the 


112 


NOTES 


[PAGE  45 


rior  powers  of  mind,  have  left 
us  valuable  works.  Goldsmith 
was  very  justly  described  by 
one  of  his  contemporaries  as  an 
inspired  idot,  and  by  another 
as  a  being 
'  Who  wrote  like  an  angel,  and 

talked  like  poor  Poll.' 
La  Fontaine  was  in  society 
a  mere  simpleton.  His  blun- 
ders would  not  come  in 
amiss  among  the  stories  of 
Hierocles.  But  these  men 
attained  literary  eminence  in 
spite  of  their  weaknesses. 
Boswell  attained  it  by  reason 
of  his  weaknesses.  If  he  had 
not  been  a  great  fool,  he  would 
never  have  been  a  great  writer. 
Without  all  the  qualities  which 
made  him  the  jest  and  the  tor- 
ment of  those  among  whom  he 
lived,  without  the  officiousness, 
the  inquisitiveness,  the  effron- 
tery, the  toad-eating,  the  in- 
sensibility to  all  reproof,  he 
never  could  have  produced  so 
excellent  a  book.  He  was  a 
slave  proud  of  his  servitude,  a 
Paul  Pry,  convinced  that  his 
own  curiosity  and  garrulity 
were  virtues,  an  unsafe  com- 
panion who  never  scrupled  to 
repay  the  most  liberal  hospi- 
tality by  the  basest  violation 
of  confidence,  a  man  without 
delicacy,  without  shame,  with- 


very  fact  of  his  being  among 
the  worst  men  in  this  world 
that  had  enabled  him  to  write 
one  of  the  best  books  therein ! 
Falser  hypothesis,  we  may  ven- 
ture to  say,  never  rose  in 
human  soul.  Bad  is  by  its 
nature  negative,  and  can  do 
nothing ;  whatsoever  enables 
us  to  do  anything  is  by  its 
very  nature  good.  Alas,  that 
there  should  be  teachers  in 
Israel,  or  even  learners,  to 
whom  this  world-ancient  f£ct 
is  still  problematical,  or  even 
deniable!  Boswell  wrote  a 
good  Book  because  he  had  a 
heart  and  an  eye  to  discern 
Wisdom,  and  an  utterance  to 
render  it  forth  ;  because  of  his 
free  insight,  his  lively  talent, 
above  all,  of  his  Love  and 
childlike  Open-mindedness. 
His  sneaking  sycophancies,  his 
greediness  and  forwardness, 
whatever  was  bestial  and 
earthy  in  him,  are  so  many 
blemishes  in  his  Book,  which 
still  disturb  us  in  its  clearness: 
wholly  hindrances,  not  helps. 
Towards  Johnson,  however, 
his  feeling  was  not  Sycophancy, 
which  is  the  lowest,  but  Rev- 
erence, which  is  the  highest  of 
human  feelings.  None  but  a 
reverent  man  (which  so  un- 
speakably few  are)  could  have 


PAGES  45-46] 


NOTES 


113 


out  sense  enough  to  know 
when  he  was  hurting  the  feel- 
ings of  others,  or  when  he  was 
exposing  himself  to  derision  ; 
and  because  he  was  all  this,  he 
has,  in  an  important  depart- 
ment of  literature,  immeasur- 
ably surpassed  such  writers 
as  Tacitus,  Clarendon,  Alfieri, 
and  his  own  idol  Johnson." 
— Macaulay. 


found  his  way  from  Boswell's 
environment  to  Johnson's :  if 
such  worship  for  real  God- 
made  superiors  showed  itself 
also  as  worship  for  apparent 
Tailor-made  superiors,  even  as 
hollow  interested  mouth-wor- 
ship for  such, — the  case,  in 
this  composite  human  nature 
of  ours,  was  not  miraculous, 
the  more  was  the  pity !  But 
for  ourselves,  let  every  one  of 
us  cling  to  this  last  article  of 
Faith,  and  know  it  as  the 
beginning  of  all  knowledge 
worth  the  name  :  That  neither 
James  Boswell's  good  Book, 
nor  any  other  good  thing,  in 
any-  time  or  in  any  place,  was, 
is,  or  can  be  performed  by  any 
man  in  virtue  of  his  badness, 
but  always  and  solely  in  spite 
thereof." — Carlyle. 


P.  46,  1.  6.  Wilkes,  John  (1727-1797).  A  prominent  Eng- 
lish politician  of  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
"Wilkes  was  a  worthless  profligate,  but  he  had  a  remarkable 
faculty  of  enlisting  popular  sympathy  on  his  side,  and,  by  a 
singular  irony  of  fortune,  he  became  the  chief  instrument  in 
bringing  about  three  of  the  greatest  advances  which  our  Con- 
stitution has  ever  made.  He  woke  the  nation  to  the  need  of 
Parliamentary  reform  by  his  defence  of  the  rights  of  con- 
stituencies against  the  despotism  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
He  took  the  lead  in  the  struggle  which  put  an  end  to  the  secrecy 


114  NOTES  [PAGE  46 

of  Parliamentary  proceedings.  He  was  the  first  to  establish  the 
right  of  the  Press  to  discuss  public  affairs." —  Green's  History, 
Ch.  X.,  Sec.  II. 

8.  Whitfield  or  Whitefield,  George  (1714-1770).  The 
founder  of  the  sect  of  Calvinistic  Methodists,  who  separated 
from  the  Wesleyan  Methodists  in  1741.  "  Whitefield's  preaching 
was  such  as  England  had  never  heard  before,  theatrical,  ex- 
travagant, often  commonplace  ;  but  hushing  all  criticism  by  its 
intense  reality,  its  earnestness  of  belief,  its  deep,  tremulous 
sympathy  with  the  sin  and  sorrow  of  mankind.  It  was  no 
common  enthusiast  who  could  wring  gold  from  the  close-fisted 
Franklin,  and  admiration  from  the  fastidious  Horace  Walpole  ; 
or,  who  could  look  down  from  the  top  of  a  green  knoll  at  Kings- 
wood  on  twenty  thousand  colliers,  grimy  from  the  Bristol  coal 
pits  ;  and  see,  as  he  preached,  the  tears  making  white  channels 
down  their  blackened  cheeks." — Green's  History,  Ch.  X., 
Sec.  I.  t 

20.  Johnson  was  a  water  drinker.  Boswell  reports : 
"Talking  of  drinking  wine,  he  [Johnson]  said,  '  I  did  not  leave 
off  wine  because  I  could  not  bear  it ;  I  have  drunk  three  bottles 
of  port  without  being  the  worse  for  it.  University  College  has 
witnessed  this.'  BOSWELL.  '  Why  then,  Sir,  did  you  leave  it 
off  ? '  JOHXSON.  '  Why,  Sir,  because  it  is  so  much  better  for  a 
man  to  be  sure  that  he  is  never  to  be  intoxicated,  never  to  lose 
power  over  himself.  .  .  .  There  is  more  happiness  in  being 
rational.  .  .  .  [And  elsewhere]  .  .  .  Sir,  I  have  no  objection 
to  a  man's  drinking  wine  if  he  can  do  it  in  moderation.  I  found 
myself  apt  to  go  to  excess  in  it,  and  therefore,  after  having  been 
for  some  time  without  it,  on  account  of  illness,  I  thought  it  bet- 
ter not  to  return  to  it.'  " 


PAGES  48-50]  NOTES  115 

P.  48,  I.  2.  The  Thrales.  Mrs.  Thrale  (Piozzi's  Anecdotes, 
p.  125)  says  they  first  met  in  1704.  Mr.  Thrale  sought  an  ex- 
cuse for  inviting  him.  Johnson  dined  with  them  every  Thurs- 
day through  the  winter  of  1764-1765.  and  in  the  autumn  of  1765 
followed  them  to  Brighton.  The  correspondence  between  John- 
son and  Mrs.  Thrale  is  published  in  part  in  Scoone's  Four 
Centuries  of  English  Letters. 

21.  Southwark.     A  district  of  London  south  of  the  Thames. 
Thrale's  brewery  was  sold  by  Johnson,  as  executor  of  the  estate, 
to  Barclay,  Perkins  &  Co.,  whose  successors  still  carry  on  the 
business  under  the  same  firm  name.     It  is  one  of  the  largest 
breweries  in  London.    The  buildings,  which  occupy  twelve  acres, 
are  situated  on  Park  Street  near  the  famous  St.  Saviour's  Church 
and  not  far  from  London  Bridge. 

22.  Streatham  Common.    A  suburban  district  a  few  miles 
south  of  London. 

P.  49,  1.  20.  Bath  and  Brighton  were  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury the  two  most  fashionable  watering-places  in  England. 
Brighton,  on  the  south  coast,  is  still  flourishing  ;  but  Bath,  in 
Somersetshire,  has  lost  much  of  its  former  vogue.  A  delightful 
account  of  Bath  in  the  fulness  of  its  glory  is  given  in  Gold- 
smith's interesting  Life  of  Richard  Xash,  commonly  known  as 
4iBeau  Nash,"  who  was  master  of  ceremonies  there.  Read 
Monsieur  Beaucaire,  by  Booth  Tarkington. 

•23.  Fleet  Street  is  one  of  the  busiest  streets  in  the  centre  of 
London,  and  runs  from  Ludgate  Circus  to  the  Strand  and  then 
westward. 

P.  50,  1.  8.  An  old  lady  named  Williams.  Of  her  Johnson 
wrote  :  "  Thirty  years  and  more  she  had  been  my  companion, 
and  her  death  has  left  me  very  desolate."  Hawkins  (Life  of 


116  NOTES  [PAGES  60-61 

Johnson,  p.  558)  says  that  "she  had  not  only  cheered  him  in 
his  solitude,  and  helped  him  to  pass  with  comfort  those  hours 
•which  otherwise  would  have  been  irksome  to  him,  but  had  re- 
lieved him  from  domestic  cares,  regulated  and  watched  over  the 
expenses  of  his  house."  "Had  she  had,"  wrote  Johnson, 
"good  humor  and  prompt  elocution,  her  universal  curiosity 
and  comprehensive  knowledge  would  have  made  her  the  delight 
of  all  that  knew  her."  —  Piozzi  Letters,  Vol.  II.,  p.  311. 
"  When  she  grew  peevish  in  her  old  age  and  last  sickness,  he 
was  forced  to  bribe  the  maid  to  stay  with  her  by  a  secret  stipu- 
lation of  half-a-crown  a  week  over  her  wages."  —  Boswell. 

P.  51,  1.  3.  The  Mitre  Tavern  was  in  Mitre  Court,  just  off 
Fleet  Street,  and  there  Johnson  and  many  other  literary  men 
were  wont  to  gather. 

13.  To  torment  him  and  live  upon  him.  And  it  may  be 
added,  to  furnish  objects  for  his  overflowing  charity  and  affec- 
tion. Johnson  once  said :  "  If  I  did  not  assist  them  no  one  else 
would,  and  they  must  be  lost  from  want."  Mrs.  Thrale  writes: 
"  If,  however,  I  ventured  to  blame  their  ingratitude,  and  con- 
demn their  conduct,  he  would  instantly  set  about  softening  the 
one  and  justifying  the  other  ;  and  finished  commonly  by  telling 
me,  that  I  knew  not  how  to  make  allowances  for  situations  I 
never  experienced."  She  also  states  that  he  loved  the  poor  as 
she  never  saw  any  one  else  love  them,  with  an  earnest  desire  to 
make  them  happy.  He  proposed  to  allow  himself  a  hundred 
pounds  a  year  out  of  the  three  hundred  of  his  pension  ;  but  she 
could  never  discover  that  he  really  spent  upon  himself  more 
than  seventy  or  at  most  eighty  pounds.  In  contrast  to 
Macaulay's  clever  but  rather  superficial  picture,  compare  what 
Carlyle  says  on  the  same  subject.  See  Appendix,  pp.  179-181. 


PAGES  52-53]  NOTES  117 

P.  52,  1.  6.  The  Celtic  region.  That  part  of  Scotland 
where  a  Celtic  language,  the  Erse,  was  spoken.  Celtic 
languages  are  still  spoken  also  in  parts  of  Wales,  Ireland,  and 
Brittany. 

Johnson  made  a  profound  impression  on  the  natives.  "He 
was  long  remembered  amongst  the  lower  orders  of  Hebrideans 
by  the  title  of  Sassenach  More,  the  big  Englishman." — Walter 
Scott.  From  the  Isle  of  Skye  Johnson  wrote :  "  The 
hospitality  of  this  remote  region  is  like  that  of  the  Golden 
Age.  We  have  found  ourselves  treated  at  every  house  as 
if  we  came  to  confer  a  benefit."  —  Piozzi  Letters,  Vol.  L, 
p.  155. 

P.  53,  1.  3.  Presbyterian  polity  and  ritual.  The  Reformation 
in  Scotland  had  mainly  taken  the  Calvinistic  form,  owing  to 
the  work  of  the  great  John  Knox,  and  the  Presbyterian  Church 
was  established.  From  the  accession  of  James  I.  to  the  throne 
of  England,  down  to  the  expulsion  of  James  II.,  the  Stuart 
kings  had  constantly  endeavored  to  force  the  Episcopalian 
polity  upon  the  Scotch  Calvinists.  In  this  they  were  met  by 
the  "  Covenanters,"  as  the  adherents  of  the  Presbytery  were 
called,  and  the  struggle  went  on  with  varying  fortunes  till  the 
Covenanters,  by  taking  the  side  of  William  and  Mary,  secured 
the  reestablishment  of  the  Presbytery.  At  the  Union  of  England 
and  Scotland  (1707)  Presbyterianism  was  definitely  recognized 
as  the  established  religion  of  the  northern  kingdom.  Read  Old 
Mortality,  by  Walter  Scott. 

6.  Berwickshire  and  East  Lothian  are  districts  in  the  south 
of  Scotland. . 

8.  Lord  Mansfield.  William  Murray  (1705-1793).  A  great 
British  jurist.  He  became  Lord  Chief  Justice  and  Baron  Mans- 


118  NOTES  [PAGES  53-54 

field  in  1756,  and  Earl  of  Mansfield  in  1776.  His  judicial 
decisions  were  notoriously  severe.  Horace  Walpole  speaks  of 
him  as  one,  "who  never  felt  pity  and  never  relented  unless 
terrified,"  and  as  one  "who  hated  the  popular  party  as  much 
as  he  loved  severity." 

23.  Macpherson,  James  (1738-1796)  obtained  a  remarkable 
notoriety  by  his  alleged  discovery  of  the  "  Poems  of  Ossian  "  in 
the  Erse  language.  These  he  claimed  to  have  translated.  In 
1762  he  published  Fingal,  an  Epic  Poem  in  Six  Books,  and  the 
following  year  Temora,  an  Epic  Poem  in  Eight  Books.  They 
created  a  great  sensation,  were  translated  into  every  modern 
European  language,  and  gave  rise  to  a  fierce  controversy. 
Critics  demanded  a  sight  of  the  originals,  but  Macpherson  never 
gratified  them. 

P.  54,  1.  2.  Johnson  reiterated  the  charge  of  forgery  in  the 
following  letter :  — 

"  MR.  JAMES  MACPHERSON  : 

"  I  received  your  foolish  and  impudent  letter.  Any  violence 
offered  me  I  shall  do  my  best  to  repel ;  and  what  I  cannot  do 
for  myself,  the  law  shall  do  for  me.  I  hope  I  shall  never  be 
deterred  from  detecting  what  I  think  a  cheat,  by  the  menaces 
of  a  ruffian. 

"  What  would  you  have  me  retract  ?  I  thought  your  book 
an  imposture  ;  I  think  it  an  imposture  still.  For  this  opinion  I 
have  given  my  reasons  to  the  publick,  which  I  here  dare  you  to 
refute.  Your  rage  I  defy.  Your  abilities,  since  your  Homer, 
are  not  so  formidable,  and  what  I  hear  of  your  morals,  inclines 
me  to  pay  regard  not  to  what  you  say,  but  to  what  you  shall 
prove.  You  may  print  this  if  you  will. 

"SAM.  JOHNSON." 


PAGES  54-56]  NOTES  119 

24.  Kenricks,  Campbells,  MacNicols,  and  Hendersons.  Ob- 
scure writers  who  would  now  be  entirely  forgotten  had  they 
not  attacked  Johnson. 

P.  55,  1.  7.  "  Maxima,  si  tu  vis,  cupio  contendere  tecum." 
"O  greatest  one,  if  you  are  willing,  I  desire  to  contend  with 
you." 

20.  Bentley.  Richard  (1662-1742).  England's  greatest 
classical  scholar.  His  famous  Dissertation  on  the  Epistles  of 
P/ialaris  was  the  first  attempt  to  apply  the  principles  of  his- 
torical criticism  to  the  authenticity  of  ancient  writings.  In 
Macaulay's  Life  of  Francis  Atterliury  (Encyclopaedia  Britannica) 
is  a  very  entertaining  account  of  the  famous  discussion  on 
Phalaris  and  of  Bentley's  part  in  it.  The  "  apothegm  "  in  full 
is,  "It  is  a  maxim  with  me  that  no  man  was  ever  written 
out  of  reputation  but  by  himself." — Monk's  Life  of  Bentley, 
p.  90. 

P.  56,  1.  14.  Taxation  no  Tyranny.  This  was  intended  to 
offset  the  effect  of  the  great  Whig  orations,  such  as  Burke's 
Conciliation  with  America.  The  pamphlet,  however,  was  bet- 
ter than  Macaulay  will  allow.  "  Johnson's  sentiments  towards 
his  fellow  subjects  in  America  have  never,  so  far  as  I  know, 
been  rightly  stated.  It  was  not  because  they  fought  for  liberty 
that  he  had  come  to  dislike  them.  A  man  who,  bursting  forth 
with  generous  indignation  has  said :  '  The  Irish  are  in  a  most 
unnatural  state  ;  for  we  see  the  minority  prevailing  over  the 
majority.'  was  not  likely  to  wish  that  our  plantations  should  be 
tyrannically  governed.  The  man  who,  in  company  with  some 
grave  men  at  Oxford,  gave  as  his  toast,  '  Here's  to  the  next 
insurrection  of  the  negroes  in  the  West  Indies,'  was  not  likely 
to  condemn  insurrection  in  general.  The  key  to  his  feelings  is 


120  NOTES  [PAGES  56-58 

found  in  his  indignant  cry,  '  How  is  it  that  we  hear  the  loudest 
yelps  for  liberty  among  the  drivers  of  negroes  ? '  He  hated  slavery 
as  perhaps  no  man  of  his  time  hated  it.  In  1756,  he  described 
Jamaica  as  a  '  place  of  great  wickedues^,  a  den  of  tyrants,  and 
a  dungeon  of  slaves.'  " — Hill's  Bosicell,  Vol.  II.,  Appendix  B. 

18.  Sheridan,  Richard  Brinsley  Butler  (1751-1816).  A  cele- 
brated dramatist  and  orator.  Two  of  his  comedies,  the  Rivals 
and  the  School  for  Scandal,  still  hold  the  stage  ;  and  his  speech 
at  the  "  impeachment  of  Warren  Hastings  is  still  remembered  as 
perhaps  the  very  grandest  triumph  of  oratory  in  a  time  prolific 
of  such  triumphs."  See  Macaulay's  Essay  on  Warren  Hastings. 

20.  Wilson,  Richard  (1714-1782).  The  first  great  English 
landscape  painter. 

P.  68,  1.  4.  Cowley,  Abraham  (1618-1667).  Although  quite 
forgotten  now,  Cowley's  poetry  was  once  considered  equal  to 
that  of  Spenser  and  Shakespeare. 

8.  The  Restoration.  The  return  in  1660  of  the  Stuarts 
after  the  rule  of  the  Long  Parliament  and  the  Cromwells. 

15.  The  wits  of  Button.  "Button's"  was  a  coffee-house 
in  London  frequented  by  Addison  and  his  group  of  admirers. 
Read  Macaulay's  essay  on  Addison,  and  Pope's  sarcastic  lines 
in  the  Epistle  to  Arbuthnot. 

15.  Cibber,  Colley  (1671-1757).  A  noted  actor  and  drama- 
tist, one  of  the  patentees  of  Drury  Lane  Theatre,  and  poet 
laureate  in  1730.  His  adaptations  of  some  of  Shakespeare's 
plays  still  remain  the  "acting  editions." 

17.  Orrery,  John  Boyle,  Earl  of  Cork  and  Orrery.  He 
wrote  a  life  of  Swift. 

17.  Swift,  Jonathan  (1667-1745).  The  greatest  of  English 
satirists,  and  the  most  original  writer  of  his  time.  A  clever 


PAGES  58-62]  XOTES  121 

versifier,  but  a  master  of  straightforward  prose.  His  Gulliver's 
Travels  are  immortal.  There  is  a  fine  sketch  of  him  in  Ma- 
caulay's  essay  on  Addison. 

19.  Services  of  no  very  honourable  kind  to  Pope.  "  Savage 
was  of  great  use  to  Mr.-  Pope,  in  helping  him  to  little  stories, 
and  idle  tales,  of  many  persons  whose  names,  lives,  and  writ- 
ings had  been  long  since  forgot,  had  not  Mr.  Pope  mentioned 
them  in  his  Dunciad.  This  office  was  too  mean  for  anyone 
but  inconsistent  Savage,  who,  with  a  great  deal  of  absurd 
pride,  could  submit  to  servile  offices  ;  and,  for  the  vanity  of  be- 
ing thought  Mr.  Pope's  intimate,  made  no  scruple  of  frequently 
sacrificing  a  regard  to  sincerity  or  truth." — Gibber's  Lives  of 
the  Poets,  Vol.  V.,  p.  266. 

P.  60,  1.  8.  Dryden,  John  (1631-1700).  The  greatest  poet  of 
the  Restoration.  His  satires  and  fables  are  masterpieces  of 
their  kind.  Together  with  Sir  William  Temple,  Dryden  is  re- 
garded as  having  founded  modern  English  prose  style.  His 
Alexander's  Feast  and  Ode  on  St.  Cecilia's  Day  are  still  read 
with  pleasure. 

9.  Gray,  Thomas  (1716-1771)  will  always  be  remembered 
for  his  perfect  Elegy  written  in  a  Country  Churchyard,  —  the 
best  poem  of  its  kind  in  English  literature. 

13.  Malone,  Edmond  (1741-1812).  A  great  Shakespearian 
critic  and  commentator. 

P.  61,  1.  3.  Robertson,  William  (1721-1793).  His  History 
of  Charles  V.  is  still  a  standard  work. 

P.  62,  1.  13.  A  music  master  from  Brescia.  His  name  was 
Piozzi,  and  he  was  really  an  honest,  estimable  man,  making 
Mrs.  Thrale  very  happy  in  her  second  marriage.  Macaulay 
here  merely  echoes  the  prevailing  British  contempt  for  "fid- 


122  NOTES  [PAGES  62-64 

dlers"  and  musicians  generally.  See  article  ''Piozzi"  in  the 
Encyclopaedia  Britannica. 

P.  63, 1.  22.  The  Ephesian  Matron.  A  story  from  Petronius 
retold  in  Jeremy  Taylor's  Holy  Dying,  last  chapter.  The 
'•matron"  attempted  to  weep  herself  to  death  in  the  tomb  of 
her  departed  husband,  but  fell  in  love  with  a  soldier  who  was 
guarding  the  corpses  of  some  robbers  that  were  hanging  near 
by.  In  order  to  save  her  new  lover  from  punishment,  one  of 
the  corpses  having  been  stolen  while  they  had  been  conversing, 
she  gave  him  the  body  of  her  defunct  husband  to  hang 
in  its  place. 

22.    The  two  pictures.     See  Hamlet,  Act  III.,  Sc.  IV. 

P.  64,  1.  10.  The  feeling  described,  etc.  "  The  secret  hor- 
rour  of  the  last  is  inseparable  from  a  thinking  being,  whose  life 
is  limited,  and  to  whom  death  is  dreadful.  .  .  .  We  always 
make  a  secret  comparison  between  a  part  and  the  whole ;  the 
termination  of  any  period  of  life  reminds  us  that  life  itself 
has  likewise  its  termination ;  when  we  have  done  any  thing 
for  the  last  time,  we  involuntary  reflect  that  a  part  of  the  days 
allotted  to  us  are  past,  and  that  as  more  is  past,  there  is  less 
remaining.  .  .  . 

"  I  hope  that  my  readers  are  already  disposed  to  view  every 
incident  with  seriousness,  and  improve  it  by  meditation  ;  and 
that,  when  they  see  this  series  of  trifles  brought  to  a  conclu- 
sion, they  will  consider  that,  by  outliving  the  Idler,  they  have 
passed  weeks,  months,  and  years,  which  are  no  longer  in  their 
power ;  that  an  end  must  in  time  be  put  to  everything  great  as 
to  everything  little  ;  that  to  life  must  come  its  last  hour,  and  to 
this  system  of  being  its  last  day,  the  hour  in  which  probation 
ceases,  and  repentance  will  be  vain ;  the  day  in  which  every 
work  of  the  hand,  and  imagination  of  the  heart,  shall  be 
brought  to  judgment,  and  an  everlasting  futurity  shall  be  de- 
termined by  the  past."  —  (From  the  last  number  of  the  Idler.) 


PAGES  65-66]  NOTES  123 

P.  65,  1.  10.  Windham,  William  (1750-1810).  An  English 
statesman  and  orator.  Macaulay  in  his  Essay  on  Warren  Hast- 
ings says,  "There  with  eyes  reverentially  fixed  on  Burke, 
appeared  the  finest  gentleman  of  the  age,  his  form  developed 
by  every  manly  exercise,  his  face  beaming  with  intelligence  and 
spirit,  the  ingenuous,  the  chivalrous,  the  high-souled  Windham." 
However,  in  spite  of  his  great  gifts,  he  gained  the  disparaging 
title  of  "  weathercock  "  from  the  instability  of  his  opinions. 

13.  Frances  Burney,  afterwards  Madame  D'Arblay  (1752- 
1840).  Her  novels  Evelina  and  Cecilia  had  the  greatest  vogue 
in  their  time.  They  are  now  rarely  read,  but  her  Journal  and 
Letters  are  known  everywhere.  Read  Macaulay's  essay  on 
Madame  D'Arblay. 

P.  66,  1.  3.  Denham,  Sir  John  (1615-1668).  A  royalist  poet 
of  mediocre  ability. 

3.  Coogreve,  William  (1672-1729).  One  of  the  leading 
dramatists  of  the  Restoration. 

3.     Gay.     See  note  on  the  Beggar's  Opera,  p.  78. 

3.  Prior,  Matthew  (1664-1721).  A  minor  poet,  especially 
noted  for  his  "  society  verse." 


APPENDIX  A 

A  COMPARATIVE  STUDY  OF  JOHNSON  FROM 
MACAULAY  AND  CARLYLE 

/.  Selections  from  Macaulay's  Essay  on  Crofter's 
Edition  of  BosvoeWs  Life  of  Johnson.  —  Edinburgh 
Review,  1831. 

Johnson  grown  old,  Johnson  in  the  fulness  of  his 
fame  and  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  competent  fortune,  is 
better  known  to  us  than  any  other  man  in  history. 
Everything  about  him,  his  coat,  his  wig,  his  figure, 
his  face,  his  scrofula,  his  St.  Vitus's  dance,  his  rolling 
walk,  his  blinking  eye,  the  outward  signs  which  too 
clearly  marked  his  approbation  of  his  dinner,  his 
insatiable  appetite  for  fish-sauce  and  veal-pie  with 
plums,  his  inextinguishable  thirst  for  tea,  his  trick 
of  touching  the  posts  as  he  walked,  his  mysterious 
practice  of  treasuring  up  scraps  of  orange-peel,  his 
morning  slumbers,  his  midnight  disputations,  his  con- 
tortions, his  mutterings,  his  gruntings,  his  puffings, 
his  vigorous,  acute,  and  ready  eloquence,  his  sarcastic 

125 


126        SELECTIONS  FROM  MAC AUL  AY'S  ESSAY 

wit,  his  vehemence,  his  insolence,  his  fits  of  tempestu- 
ous rage,  his  queer  intimates,  old  Mr.  Levett  and  blind 
Mrs.  Williams,  the  cat  Hodge  and  the  negro  Frank,  all 
are  as  familiar  to  us  as  the  objects  by  which  we  have 
been  surrounded  from  childhood. 

Johnson  came  up  to  London  precisely  at  the  time 
when  the  condition  of  a  man  of  letters  was  most  miser- 
able and  degraded.      It  was  a  dark  night 

between  two  sunny  days.     The  age  of  pat- 
(tuthors  in  J 

the  early  ronage  had  passed  away.  The  age  of  gen- 
eiyhteenth  eraj  curiosity  and  intelligence  had  not 
arrived.  The  number  of  readers  is  at 
present  so  great  that  a  popular  author  may  subsist 
in  comfort  and  opulence  on  the  profits  of  his  works. 
In  the  reigns  of  William  the  Third,  of  Anne,  and 
of  George  the  First,  even  such  men  as  Congreve 
and  Addison  would  scarcely  have  been  able  to  live 
like  gentlemen  by  the  mere  sale  of  their  writings. 
But  the  deficiency  of  the  natural  demand  for  literature 
was,  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  and  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  eighteenth  century,  more  than  made  np  by 
artificial  encouragement,  by  a  vast  system  of  bounties 
and  premiums.  There  was,  perhaps,  never  a  time  at 
•which  the  rewards  of  literary  merit  were  so  splendid, 


0-V  SOS  WELL'S  LIFE  OF  JOHNSON  127 

at  which  men  who  could  write  well  found  such  easy 
admittance  into  the  most  distinguished  society,  and  to 
the  highest  honours  of  the  state.  The  chiefs  of  both 
the  great  parties  into  which  the  kingdom  was  divided 
patronised  literature  with  emulous  munificence.  Con- 
greve,  when  he  had  scarcely  attained  his  majority,  was 
rewarded  for  his  first  comedy  with  places  which  made 
him  independent  for  life.  Smith,  though  his  Hip- 
pobjtus  and  Phaedra  failed,  would  have  been  consoled 
with  three  hundred  a  year  but  for  his  own  folly. 
Rowe  was  not  only  Poet  Laureate,  but  also  land- 
surveyor  of  the  customs  in  the  port  of  London,  clerk 
of  the  council  to  the  Prince  of  Wales,  and  secretary 
of  the  Presentations  to  the  Lord  Chancellor.  Hughes 
was  secretary  to  the  Commissions  of  the  Peace.  Am- 
brose Philips  was  judge  of  the  Prerogative  Court  in 
Ireland.  Locke  was  Commissioner  of  Appeals  and  of 
the  Board  of  Trade.  Newton  was  Master  of  the  Mint. 
Stepney  and  Prior  were  employed  in  embassies  of 
high  dignity  and  importance.  Gay,  who  commenced 
life  as  an  apprentice  to  a  silk-mercer,  became  a  secre- 
tary of  legation  at  five-and-twenty.  It  was  to  a  poem 
on  the  Death  of  Charles  the  Second,  and  to  the  City 
and  Country  Mouse,  that  Montague  owed  his  intro- 
duction into  public  life,  his  earldom,  his  garter,  and 


his  Auditorship  of  the  Exchequer.  Swift,  but  for  the 
unconquerable  prejudice  of  the  queen,  would  have 
been  a  bishop.  Oxford,  with  his  white  staff  in  his 
hand,  passed  through  the  crowd  of  his  suitors  to 
welcome  Parnell,  when  that  ingenious  writer  deserted 
the  Whigs.  Steele  was  a  commissioner  of  stamps  and 
a  member  of  Parliament.  Arthur  Mainwaring  was  a 
commissioner  of  the  customs,  and  auditor  of  the  im- 
prest. Tickell  was  secretary  to  the  Lords  Justices  of 
Ireland.  Addison  was  secretary  of  state. 

This  liberal  patronage  was  brought  into  fashion,  as 
it  seems,  by  the  magnificent  Dorset,  almost  the  only 
noble  versifier  in  the  court  of  Charles  the  Second  who 
possessed  talents  for  composition  which  were  indepen- 
dent of  the  aid  of  a  coronet.  Montague  owed  his  eleva- 
tion to  the  favour  of  Dorset,  and  imitated  through  the 
whole  course  of  his  life  the  liberality  to  which  he  was 
himself  so  greatly  indebted.  The  Tory  leaders,  Harley 
and  Bolingbroke  in  particular,  vied  with  the  chiefs  of 
the  Whig  party  in  zeal  for  the  encouragement-of  letters. 
But  soon  after  the  accession  of  the  House  of  Hanover 
a  change  took  place.  The  supreme  power  passed  to  a 
man  who  cared  little  for  poetry  or  eloquence.  The 
importance  of  the  House  of  Commons  was  constantly 
on  the  increase.  The  government  was  under  the  neces- 


ON  BOS  WELL'S  LIFE  OF  JOHNSON  129 

sity  of  bartering  for  Parliamentary  support  much  of 
that  patronage  which  had  been  employed  in  fostering 
literary  merit ;  and  Walpole  was  by  no  means  inclined 
to  divert  any  part  of  the  fund  of  corruption  to  pur- 
poses which  he  considered  as  idle.  He  had  eminent 
talents  for  government  and  for  debate.  But  he  had 
paid  little  attention  to  books,  and  felt  little  respect 
for  authors.  One  of  the  coarse  jokes  of  his  friend,  Sir 
Charles  Handbury  Williams,  was  far  more  pleasing  to 
him  than  Thomson's  Seasons  or  Richardson's  Pamela. 
He  had  observed  that  some  of  the  distinguished  writ- 
ers whom  the  favour  of  Halifax  had  turned  into 
statesmen  had  been  mere  encumbrances  to  their  party, 
dawdlers  in  office,  and  mutes  in  Parliament.  During 
the  whole  course  of  his  administration,  therefore,  he 
scarcely  befriended  a  single  man  of  genius.  The  best 
writers  of  the  age  gave  all  their  support  to  the  opposi- 
tion, and  contributed  to  excite  that  discontent  which, 
after  plunging  the  nation  into  a  foolish  and  unjust 
war,  overthrew  the  minister  to  make  room  for  men 
less  able  and  equally  immoral.  The  opposition  could 
reward  its  eulogists  with  little  more  than  promises  and 
caresses.  St.  James's  would  give  nothing:  Leicester 
house  had  nothing  to  give. 

Thus,  at  the  time  when  Johnson  commenced  his  lit- 


130        SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY'S  ESSAY 

erary  career,  a  writer  had  little  to  hope  from  the  patron- 
age of  powerful  individuals.  The  patronage  of  the 
Grub  Street  public  did  not  yet  furnish  the  means  of  com- 
authors.  fortable  subsistence.  The  prices  paid  by 
booksellers  to  authors  were  so  low,  that  a  man  of  con- 
siderable talents  and  unremitting  industry  could  do 
little  more  than  provide  for  the  day  which  was  passing 
over  him.  The  lean  kine  had  eaten  up  the  fat  kine. 
The  thin  and  withered  ears  had  devoured  the  good  ears. 
The  season  of  rich  harvests  was  over,  and  the  period 
of  famine  had  begun.  All  that  is  squalid  and  miserable 
might  now  be  summed  up  in  the  word  Poet.  That 
word  denoted  a  creature  dressed  like  a  scarecrow, 
familiar  with  compters  and  spunging-houses,  and  per- 
fectly qualified  to  decide  on  the  comparative  merits 
of  the  Common  Side  in  the  King's  bench  prison  and 
of  Mount  Scoundrel  in  the  Fleet.  Even  the  poorest 
pitied  him;  and  they  well  might  pity  him.  For  if 
their  condition  was  equally  abject,  their  aspirings  were 
not  equally  high,  nor  their  sense  of  insult  equally 
acute.  To  lodge  in  a  garret  up  four  pair  of  stairs,  to 
dine  in  a  cellar  among  footmen  out  of  place,  to  trans- 
late ten  hours  a  day  for  the  wages  of  a  ditcher,  to  be 
hunted  by  bailiffs  from  one  haunt  of  beggary  and  pes- 
tilence to  another,  from  Grub  Street  to  St.  George's 


ON  BOS  WELL'S  LIFE   OF  JOHNSON  131 

Fields,  and  from  St.  George's  Fields  to  the  alleys 
behind  St.  Martin's  church,  to  sleep  on  a  bulk  in  June 
and  amidst  the  ashes  of  a  glass-house  in  December,  to 
die  in  an  hospital  and  to  be  buried  in  a  parish  vault, 
was  the  fate  of  more  than  one  writer  who,  if  he  had 
lived  thirty  years  earlier,  would  have  been  admitted 
to  the  sittings  of  the  Kitcat  or  the  Scriblerus  club, 
would  have  sat  in  Parliament,  and  would  have  been 
intrusted  with  embassies  to  the  High  Allies ;  who,  if 
he  had  lived  in  our  time,  would  have  found  encourage- 
ment scarcely  less  munificent  in  Albemarle-street  or  in 
Paternoster-row. 

As  every  climate  has  its  peculiar  diseases,  so  every 
walk  of  life  has  its  peculiar  temptations.  The  literary 
character,  assuredly,  has  always  had  its  Character. 
share  of  faults,  vanity,  jealousy,  morbid  istics  of  the 
sensibility.  To  these  faults  were  now  "Poets." 
superadded  the  faults  which  are  commonl}-  found  in 
men  whose  livelihood  is  precarious,  and  whose  prin- 
ciples are  exposed  to  the  trial  of  severe  distress.  All 
the  vices  of  the  gambler  and  of  the  beggar  were 
blended  with  those  of  the  author.  The  prizes  in  the 
wretched  lottery  of  book-making  were  scarcely  less 
ruinous  than  the  blanks.  If  good  fortune  came,  it 
came  in  siich  a  manner  that  it  was  almost  certain  to 


132        SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY'S  ESSAY 

be  abused.  After  months  of  starvation  and  despair, 
a  full  third  night  or  a  well-received  dedication  filled 
the  pocket  of  the  lean,  ragged,  unwashed  poet  with 
guineas.  He  hastened  to  enjoy  those  luxuries  with 
the  images  of  which  his  mind  had  been  haunted 
while  he  was  sleeping  amidst  the  cinders  and  eating 
potatoes  at  the  Irish  ordinary  in  Shoe  Lane.  A  week 
of  taverns  soon  qualified  him  for  another  year  of 
night-cellars.  Such  was  the  life  of  Savage,  of  Boyse, 
and  of  a  crowd  of  others.  Sometimes  blazing  in  gold- 
laced  hats  and  waistcoats;  sometimes  lying  in  bed 
because  their  coats  had  gone  to  pieces,  or  wearing 
paper  cravats  because  their  linen  was  in  pawn;  some- 
times drinking  Champagne  and  Tokay  with  Betty 
Careless;  sometimes  standing  at  the  window  of  an 
eating-house  in  Porridge  island,  to  snuff  up  the  scent 
of  what  they  could  not  afford  to  taste;  they  knew 
luxury ;  they  knew  beggary ;  but  they  never  knew 
comfort.  These  men  were  irreclaimable.  They  looked 
on  a  regular  and  frugal  life  with  the  same  aversion 
which  an  old  gipsy  or  a  Mohawk  hunter  feels  for  a 
stationary  abode,  and  for  the  restraints  and  securities 
of  civilised  communities.  They  were  as  untameable, 
as  much  wedded  to  their  desolate  freedom,  as  the  wild 
ass.  They  could  no  more  be  broken  in  to  the  offices 


ON  BOS  WELL'S  LIFE  OF  JOHNSON         133 

of  social  man  than  the  unicorn  could  be  trained  to 
serve  and  abide  by  the  crib.  It  was  well  if  they  did 
not,  like  beasts  of  a  still  fiercer  race,  tear  the  hands 
which  ministered  to  their  necessities.  To  assist  them 
was  impossible ;  and  the  most  benevolent  of  mankind 
at  length  became  weary  of  giving  relief  which  was 
dissipated  with  the  wildest  profusion  as  soon  as  it 
had  been  received.  If  a  sum  was  bestowed  on  the 
wretched  adventurer,  such  as,  properly  husbanded, 
might  have  supplied  him  for  six  months,  it  was 
instantly  spent  in  strange  freaks  of  sensuality,  and, 
before  forty-eight  hours  had  elapsed,  the  poet  was 
again  pestering  all  his  acquaintance  for  twopence  to 
get  a  plate  of  shin  of  beef  at  a  subterraneous  cook- 
shop.  If  his  friends  gave  him  an  asylum  in  their 
houses,  those  houses  were  forthwith  turned  into 
bagnios  and  taverns.  All  order  was  destroyed;  all 
business  was  suspended.  The  most  good-natured  host 
began  to  repent  of  his  eagerness  to  serve  a  man  of 
genius  in  distress,  when  he  heard  his  guest  roaring  for 
fresh  punch  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

A  few  eminent  writers  were  more  fortunate.  Pope 
had  been  raised  above  poverty  by  the  active  patronage 
which,  in  his  youth,  both  the  great  political  parties 
had  extended  to  his  Homer.  Young  had  received  the 


134       SELECTIONS  FROM  MA  CAUL  AY'S  ESSAY 

only  pension  ever  bestowed,  to  the  best  of  our  recollec- 
tion, by  Sir  Kobert  Walpole,  as  the  reward  of  mere 
literary  merit.  One  or  two  of  the  many  poets  who 
attached  themselves  to  the  opposition,  Thomson  in 
particular  and  Mallett,  obtained,  after  much  severe 
suffering,  the  means  of  subsistence  from  their  political 
friends.  Richardson,  like  a  man  of  sense,  kept  his 
sh6p;  and  his  shop  kept  him,  which  his  novels,  admi- 
rable as  they  are,  would  scarcely  have  done.  But 
nothing  could  be  more  deplorable  than  the  state  even 
of  the  ablest  men,  who  at  that  time  depended  for  sub- 
sistence on  their  writings.  Johnson,  Collins,  Field- 
ing, and  Thomson,  were  certainly  four  of  the  most 
distinguished  persons  that  England  produced  during 
the  eighteenth  century.  It  is  well  known  that  they 
were  all  four  arrested  for  debt. 

Into  calamities  and  difficulties  such  as  these  John- 
son plunged  in  his  twenty-eighth  year.  From  that 
time  till  he  was  three  or  four  and  fifty,  we  have  little 
information  respecting  him ;  little,  we  mean,  compared 
with  the  full  and  accurate  information  which  we 
possess  respecting  his  proceedings  and  habits  towards 
the  close  of  his  life.  He  emerged  at  length  from  cock- 
lofts and  sixpenny  ordinaries  into  the  society  of  the 
polished  and  the  opulent.  His  fame  was  established. 


ON  BOS  WELL'S  LIFE  OF  JOHNSON  135 

A  pension  sufficient  for  his  wants  had  been  conferred 
on  him :  and  he  came  forth  to  astonish  a  generation 
with  which  he  had  almost  as  little  in  common  as  with 
Frenchmen  or  Spaniards. 


Johnson  came  among  them  the  solitary  specimen  of 
a  past  age,  the  last  survivor  of  the  genuine  race  of 

Grub  Street  hacks ;  the  last  of  that  erenera- 

Character- 
tion  of  authors  whose  abject  misery  and      istics  of 

whose  dissolute  manners  had  furnished  Johnson. 
inexhaustible  matter  to  the  satirical  genius  of  Pope. 
From  nature  he  had  received  an  uncouth  figure,  a  dis- 
eased constitution,  and  an  irritable  temper.  The 
manner  in  which  the  earlier  years  of  his  manhood 
had  been  passed  had  given  to  his  demeanour,  and 
even  to  his  moral  character,  some  peculiarities 
appalling  to  the  civilised  beings  who  were  the 
companions  of  his  old  age.  The  perverse  irregularity 
of  his  hours,  the  slovenliness  of  his  person,  his  fits  of 
strenuous  exertion,  interrupted  by  long  intervals  of 
sluggishness,  his  strange  abstinence,  and  his  equally 
strange  voracity,  his  active  benevolence,  contrasted 
with  the  constant  rudeness  and  the  occasional  ferocity 
of  his  manners  in  society,  made  him,  in  the  opinion  of 


136        SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAU  LAY'S  ESSAY 

those  with  whom  he  lived  during  the  last  twenty  years 
of  his  life,  a  complete  original.  An  original  he  was, 
undoubtedly,  in  some  respects.  But  if  we  possessed 
full  information  concerning  those  who  shared  his  early 
hardships,  we  should  probably  find  that  what  we  call 
his  singularities  of  manner  were,  for  the  most  part, 
failings  which  he  had  in  common  with  the  class  to 
which  he  belonged.  He  ate  at  Streatham  Park  as  he 
had  been  used  to  eat  behind  the  screen  at  St.  John's 
Gate,  when  he  was  ashamed  to  show  his  ragged 
clothes.  He  ate  as  it  was  natural  that  a  man  should 
eat,  who,  during  a  great  part  of  his  life,  had  passed 
the  morning  in  doubt  whether  he  should  have  food 
for  the  afternoon.  The  habits  of  his  early  life  had 
accustomed  him  to  bear  privation  with  fortitude,  but 
not  to  taste  pleasure  with  moderation.  He  could  fast ; 
but,  when  he  did  not  fast,  he  tore  his  dinner  like  a 
famished  wolf,  with  the  veins  swelling  on  his  forehead, 
and  the  perspiration  running  down  his  cheeks.  He 
scarcely  ever  took  wine.  But  when  he  drank  it,  he 
drank  it  greedily  and  in  large  tumblers.  These  were, 
in  fact,  mitigated  symptoms  of  that  same  moral  dis- 
ease which  raged  with  such  deadly  malignity  in  his 
friends  Savage  and  Boyse.  The  roughness  and  violence 
which  he  showed  in  society  were  to  be  expected  from 


ON  BOS  WELL'S  LIFE  OF  JOHNSON  137 

a  man  whose  temper,  not  naturally  gentle,  had  been 
long  tried  by  the  bitterest  calamities,  by  the  want  of 
meat,  of  fire,  and  of  clothes,  by  the  importunity  of 
creditors,  by  the  insolence  of  booksellers,  by  the  de- 
rision of  fools,  by  the  insincerity  of  patrons,  by  that 
bread  which  is  the  bitterest  of  all  food,  by  those  stairs 
which  are  the  most  toilsome  of  all  paths,  by  that  de- 
ferred hope  which  makes  the  heart  sick.  Through 
all  these  things  the  ill-dressed,  coarse,  ungainly  pedant 
had  struggled  manfully  up  to  eminence  and  command. 
It  was  natural  that,  in  the  exercise  of  his  sympathy 
power,  he  should  be  "  eo  immitior,  quia  and  lack  of 
toleraverat,"  that,  though  his  heart  was  *vmP<*thv- 
undoubtedly  generous  and  humane,  his  demeanour  in 
society  should  be  harsh  and  despotic.  For  severe 
distress  he  had  sympathy,  and  not  only  sympathy, 
but  munificent  relief.  But  for  the  suffering  which  a 
harsh  world  inflicts  upon  a  delicate  mind  he  had  no 
pity ;  for  it  was  a  kind  of  suffering  which  he  could 
scarcely  conceive.  He  would  carry  home  on  his 
shoulders  a  sick  and  starving  girl  from  the  streets. 
He  turned  his  house  into  a  place  of  refuge  for  a  crowd 
of  wretched  old  creatures  who  could  find  no  other 
asylum  ; .  nor  could  all  their  peevishness  and  ingrati- 
tude weary  out  his  benevolence.  But  the  pangs  of 


138        SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY'S  ESSAY 

wounded  vanity  seemed  to  him  ridiculous ;  and  he 
scarcely  felt  sufficient  compassion  even  for  the  pangs 
of  wounded  affection.  He  had  seen  and  felt  so  much 
of  sharp  misery,  that  he  was  not  affected  by  paltry 
vexations;  and  he  seemed  to  think  that  everybody 
ought  to  be  as  much  hardened  to  these  vexatious  as 
himself.  He  was  angry  with  Boswell  for  complaining 
of  a  headache,  with  Mrs.  Thrale  for  grumbling  abou^ 
the  dust  on  the  road,  or  the  smell  of  the  kitchen. 
These  were,  in  his  phrase,  "  foppish  lamentations," 
which  people  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  utter  in  a 
world  so  full  of  sin  and  sorrow.  Goldsmith  crying 
because  the  Good-natured  Man  had  failed,  in- 
spired him  with  no  pity.  Though  his  own  health 
was  not  good,  he  detested  and  despised  valetudi- 
narians. Pecuniary  losses,  unless  they  reduced  the 
loser  absolutely  to  beggary,  moved  him  very  little. 
People  whose  hearts  had  been  softened  by  prosperity 
might  weep,  he  said,  for  such  events,  but  all  that  could 
be  expected  of  a  plain  man  was  not  to  laugh.  He  was 
not  much  moved  even  by  the  spectacle  of  Lady  Tavistock 
dying  of  a  broken  heart  for  the  loss  of  her  lord.  Such 
grief  he  considered  as  a  luxury  reserved  for  the  idle  and 
the  wealthy.  A  washerwoman,  left  a  widow  with  nine 
small  children,  would  not  have  sobbed  herself  to  death. 


ON  SOS  WELL'S  LIFE  OF  JOHNSON  139 

A  person  who  troubled  himself  so  little  about  small 
or  sentimental  grievances  was  not  likely  to  be  very 
attentive  to  the  feelings  of  others  in  the  £ac£  Of 
ordinary  intercourse  of  society.  He  could  politeness. 
not  understand  how  a  sarcasm  or  a  reprimand  could 
make  any  man  really  unhappy.  "My  dear  doctor," 
said  he  to  Goldsmith,  "  what  harm  does  it  do  to  a  man 
to  call  him  Holof ernes  ?  "  "  Pooh,  ma'am,"  he  ex- 
claimed to  Mrs.  Carter,  "  who  is  the  worse  for  being 
talked  of  uncharitably?"  Politeness  has  been  well 
denned  as  benevolence  in  small  things.  Johnson  was 
impolite,  not  because  he  wanted  benevolence,  but 
because  small  things  appeared  smaller  to  him  than  to 
people  who  had  never  known  what  it  was  to  live  for 
fourpence-half penny  a  day. 


The  characteristic  peculiarity  of  his  intellect  was  the 
union  of  great  powers  with  low  prejudices.      If  we 
judged  of  him  by  the  best  parts  of  his   Great  pow- 
mind,  we  should  place  him  almost  as  high  ers  and  low 
as  he  was  placed  by  the  idolatry  of  Bos-  prejudices. 
well;  if  by  the  worst  parts  of  his  mind,  we  should 
place  him  even  below  Boswell  himself.      Where  he 
was  not  under  the  influence  of  some  strange  scruple, 


140        SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY'S  ESSAY 

or  some  domineering  passion,  which  prevented  him 
from  boldly  and  fairly  investigating  a  subject,  he  was 
a  wary  and  acute  reasoner,  a  little  too  much  inclined 
to  scepticism,  and  a  little  too  fond  of  paradox.  No 
man  was  less  likely  to  be  imposed  upon  by  fallacies  in 
argument  or  by  exaggerated  statements  of  fact.  But 
if,  while  he  was  beating  down  sophisms  and  exposing 
false  testimony,  some  childish  prejudices,  such  as  would 
excite  laughter  in  a  well-managed  nursery,  came  across 
him,  he  was  smitten  as  if  by  enchantment.  His  mind 
dwindled  away  under  the  spell  from  gigantic  elevation 
to  dwarfish  littleness.  Those  who  had  lately  been  ad- 
miring its  amplitude  and  its  force  were  now  as  much 
astonished  at  its  strange  narrowness  and  feebleness  as 
the  fisherman  in  the  Arabian  tale,  wheu  he  saw  the 
Genie,  whose  statue  had  overshadowed  the  whole  sea- 
coast,  and  whose  might  seemed  equal  to  a  contest  with 
armies,  contract  himself  to  the  dimensions  of  his  small 
prison,  and  lie  there  the  helpless  slave  of  the  charm  of 
Solomon. 

Johnson  was  in  the  habit  of  sifting  with  extreme 
c  d  it  severity  the  evidence  for  all  stories  which 
and  were  merely  odd.  But  when  they  were  not 

incredulity.  on]v  ofrft  Dut  miraculous,  his  severity  re- 
laxed. He  began  to  be  credulous  precisely  at  the  point 


ON  BOS  WELL'S  LIFE   OF  JOHXSOX  141 

where  the  most  credulous  people  begin  to  be  sceptical. 
It  is  curious  to  observe,  both  in  his  writings  and  in  his 
conversation,  the  contrast  between  the  disdainful  man- 
ner in  which  he  rejects  unauthenticated  anecdotes, 
even  when  they  are  consistent  with  the  general  laws 
of  nature,  and  the  respectful  manner  in  which  he  men- 
tions the  wildest  stories  relating  to  the  invisible  world. 
A  man  who  told  him  of  a  waterspout  or  a  meteoric 
stone  generally  had  the  lie  direct  given  him  for  his 
pains.  A  man  who  told  him  of  a  prediction  or  a  dream 
wonderfully  accomplished  was  sure  of  a  courteous 
hearing.  "Johnson,"  observed  Hogarth,  "like  King 
David,  says  in  his  haste  that  all  men  are  liars."  "His 
incredulity/'  says  ]\Irs.  Thrale,  "amounted  almost  to 
disease/''  She  tells  us  how  he  browbeat  a  gentleman, 
who  gave  him.  an  account  of  a  hurricane  in  the  West 
Indies,  and  a  poor  quaker  who  related  some  strange 
circumstance  about  the  red-hot  balls  fired  at  the  siege 
of  Gibraltar.  "  It  is  not  so.  It  cannot  be  true.  Don't 
tell  that  story  again.  You  cannot  think  how  poor  a 
figure  you  make  in  telling  it."  He  once  said,  half 
jestingly,  we  suppose,  that  for  six  months  he  refused 
to  credit  the  fact  of  the  earthquake  at  Lisbon,  and  that 
he  still  believed  the  extent  of  the  calamity  to  be  greatly 
exaggerated.  Yet  he  related  with  a  grave  face  how  old 


142        SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY'S  ESSAY 

Mr.  Cave  of  St.  John's  gate  saw  a  ghost,  and  how  this 
ghost  was  something  of  a  shadowy  being.  He  went 
himself  on  a  ghost  hunt  to  Cock  Lane,  and  was  angry 
with  John  Wesley  for  not  following  up  another  scent 
of  the  same  kind  with  proper  spirit  and  perseverance. 
He  rejects  the  Celtic  genealogies  and  poems  without 
the  least  hesitation;  yet  he  declares  himself  willing  to 
believe  the  stories  of  second-sight.  If  he  had  examined 
the  claims  of  the  Highland  seers  with  half  the  severity 
with  which  he  sifted  the  evidence  for  the  genuineness 
of  Fingal,  he  would,  we  suspect,  have  come  away  from 
Scotland  with  a  mind  fully  made  up.  In  his  Liw*  <>f 
the  Poets,  we  find  that  he  is  unwilling  to  give  credit  to 
the  accounts  of  Lord  Roscommon's  early  proficiency  in 
his  studies ;  but  he  tells  with  great  solemnity  an  absurd 
romance  about  some  intelligence  preternaturally  im- 
pressed on  the  mind  of  that  nobleman.  He  avows  him- 
self to  be  in  great  doubt  about  the  truth  of  the  story, 
and  ends  by  warning  his  readers  not  wholly  to  slight 
such  impressions. 


Many  of  his  sentiments  on  religious  subjects  are 
worthy  of  a  liberal  and  enlarged  mind.  He  could 
discern  clearly  enough  the  folly  and  meanness  of  all 


ON  BOSWELL'S  LIFE  OF  JOHNSON  143 

bigotry  except  his  own.  When  he  spoke  of  the  scruples 
of  the  Puritans,  he  spoke  like  a  person  who  had  really 
obtained  an  insight  into  the  divine  philoso-  Religious 
phy  of  the  New  Testament,  and  who  ^as- 
considered  Christianity  as  a  noble  scheme  of  govern- 
ment, tending  to  promote  the  happiness  and  to  elevate 
the  moral  nature  of  man.  The  horror  which  the  sec- 
taries felt  for  cards,  Christmas  ale,  plum-porridge, 
mince-pies,  and  dancing  bears,  excited  his  contempt. 
To  the  arguments  urged  by  some  very  worthy  people 
against  showy  dress,  he  replied  with  admirable  sense 
and  spirit,  "Let  us  not  be  found,  when  our  Master 
calls  us,  stripping  the  lace  off  our  waistcoats,  but  the 
spirit  of  contention  from  our  souls  and  tongues.  Alas  ! 
sir,  a  man  who  cannot  get  to  heaven  in  a  green  coat 
will  not  find  his  way  thither  the  sooner  in  a  grey  one." 
Yet  he  was  himself  under  the  tyranny  of  scruples  as  un- 
reasonable as  those  of  Hudibras  or  Ralpho,  and  carried 
his  zeal  for  ceremonies  and  for  ecclesiastical  dignities 
to  lengths  altogether  inconsistent  with  reason  or  with 
Christian  charity.  He  has  gravely  noted  down  in  his 
diary  that  he  once  committed  the  sin  of  drinking  coffee 
on  Good  Friday.  In  Scotland,  he  thought  it  his  duty 
to  pass  several  months  without  joining  in  public  wor- 
ship, solely  because  the  ministers  of  the  kirk  had  not 


144        SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY'S  ESSAY 

been  ordained  by  bishops.  His  mode  of  estimating 
the  piety  of  his  neighbours  was  somewhat  singular. 
"Campbell,"  said  he,  "is  a  good  man,  a  pious  man.  I 
am  afraid  he  has  not  been  in  the  inside  of  a  church  for 
many  years;  but  he  never  passes  a  church  without 
pulling  off  his  hat :  this  shows  he  has  good  principles." 
Spain  and  Sicily  must  surely  contain  many  pious  rob- 
bers and  well-principled  assassins.  Johnson  could 
easily  see  that  a  Roundhead  who  named  all  his  chil- 
dren after  Solomon's  singers,  and  talked  in  the  House 
of  Commons  about  seeking  the  Lord,  might  be  an 
unprincipled  villain,  whose  religious  mummeries  only 
aggravated  his  guilt.  But  a  man  who  took  off  his  hat 
when  he  passed  a  church  episcopally  consecrated  must 
be  a  good  man,  a  pious  man,  a  man  of  good  principles. 
Johnson  could  easily  see  that  those  persons  who  looked 
on  a  dance  or  a  laced  waistcoat  as  sinful,  deemed  most 
ignobly  of  the  attributes  of  God  and  of  the  ends  of 
revelation.  But  with  what  a  storm  of  invective  he 
would  have  overwhelmed  any  man  who  had  blamed 
him  for  celebrating  the  redemption  of  mankind  with 
sugarless  tea  and  butterless  buns. 

Nobody  spoke  more  contemptuously  of  the  cant  of 
patriotism.     Nobody  saw  more  clearly  the  error  of 


GLV  BOS  WELL'S  LIFE   OF  JOHXSOX  145 

those  who  regarded  libert\-,  not  as  a  means,  but  as  an 
end,  and  who  proposed  to  themselves,  as  the  object 
of  their  pursuit,  the  prosperity  of  the  state  political 
as  distinct  from  the  prosperity  of  the  ideas. 
individuals  who  compose  the  state.  His  calm  and 
settled  opinion  seems  to  have  been,  that  forms  of 
government  have  little  or  no  influence  on  the  happiness 
of  society.  This  opinion,  erroneous  as  it  is,  ought  at 
least  to  have  preserved  him  from  all  intemperance  on 
political  questions.  It  did  not,  however,  preserve  him 
from  the  lowest,  fiercest,  and  most  absurd  extrava- 
gances of  party-spirit,  from  rants  which,  in  even-thing 
but  the  diction,  resembled  those  of  Squire  Western. 
He  was,  as  a  politician,  half -ice  and  half  fire.  On  the 
side  of  his  intellect,  he  was  a  mere  Pococurante,  far 
too  apathetic  about  public  affairs,  far  too  sceptical  as 
to  the  good  or  evil  tendency  of  any  form  of  polity. 
His  passions,  on  the  contrary,  were  violent  even  to 
slaying,  against  all  who  leaned  to  Whiggish  principles. 
The  well-known  lines  which  he  inserted  in  Gold- 
smith's Traveller  express  what  seems  to  have  been  his 
deliberate  judgment :  — 

"  How  small  of  all  that  human  hearts  endure 
That  part  which  kings  or  laws  can  cause  or  cure!" 

He  had  previously  put  expressions  very  similar  into 


146        SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY'S  ESSAY 

the  mouth  of  Rasselas.  It  is  amusing  to  contrast  these 
passages  with  the  torrents  of  raving  abuse  which  he 
poured  forth  against  the  Long  Parliament  and  the 
American  Congress.  In  one  of  the  conversations 
reported  by  Boswell  this  inconsistency  displays  itself 
in  the  most  ludicrous  manner. 

The  judgments  which  Johnson  passed  on  books 
were,  in  his  own  time,  regarded  with  superstitious 
Literary  veneration,  and,  in  our  time,  are  generally 
judgments,  treated  with  indiscriminate  contempt.  They 
are  the  judgments  of  a  strong  but  enslaved  under- 
standing. The  mind  of  the  critic  was  hedged  round 
by  an  uninterrupted  fence  of  prejudices  and  super- 
stitions. Within  his  narrow  limits,  he  displayed  a 
vigour  and  an  activity  which  ought  to  have  enabled 
him  to  clear  the  barrier  that  confined  him. 

Johnson  decided  literary  questions  like  a  lawyer, 
not  like  a  legislator.  He  never  examined  foundations 
where  a  point  was  already  ruled.  His  whole  code  of 
criticism  rested  on  pure  assumption,  for  which  he 
sometimes  quoted  a  precedent  or  an  authority,  but 
rarely  troubled  himself  to  give  a  reason  drawn  from 
the  nature  of  things.  He  took  it  for  granted  that  the 
kind  of  poetry  which  flourished  rn  his  own  time,  which 
he  had  been  accustomed  to  hear  praised  from  his  child- 


ON  BOS  WELL'S  LIFE   OF  JOHXSON  147 

hood,  and  which  he  had  himself  written  with  success, 
was  the  best  kind  of  poetry.  In  his  biographical 
work  he  has  repeatedly  laid  it  down  as  an  undeniable 
proposition  that  during  the  latter  part  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  and  the  earlier  part  of  the  eighteenth, 
English  poetry  had  been  in  a  constant  progress  of  im- 
provement. Waller,  Deuham,  Dryden,  and  Pope,  had 
been,  according  to  him,  the  great  reformers.  He 
judged  of  all  works  of  the  imagination  by  the  standard 
established  among  his  own  contemporaries.  Though 
he  allowed  Homer  to  have  been  a  greater  man  than 
Virgil,  he  seems  to  have  thought  the  ^Eneid  a  greater 
poem  than  the  Iliad.  Indeed  he  well  might  have 
thought  so ;  for  he  preferred  Pope's  Iliad  to  Homer's. 
He  pronounced  that,  after  Hoole's  translation  of  Tasso, 
Fairfax's  would  hardly  be  reprinted.  He  could  see  no 
merit  in  our  fine  old  English  ballads,  and  always 
spoke  with  the  most  provoking  contempt  of  Percy's 
fondness  for  them.  Of  the  great  original  works  of 
imagination  which  appeared  during  his  time,  Richard- 
son's novels  alone  excited  his  admiration.  He  could 
see  little  or  no  merit  in  Tom  Jones,  in  GuUicer's 
Trarels,  or  in  Tristram  Shandy.  To  Thomson's  Castle 
of  Indolence,  he  vouchsafed  only  a  line  of  cold  com- 
mendation, of  commendation  much  colder  than  what 


148        SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY'S  ESSAY 

he  has  bestowed  on  the  Creation  of  that  portentous 
bore,  Sir  Richard  Blackmore.  Gray  was,  in  his  dia- 
lect, a  barren  rascal.  Churchill  was  a  blockhead.  The 
contempt  which  he  felt  for  the  trash  of  Macpherson 
was  indeed  just;  bnt  it  was,  we  suspect,  just  by 
chance.  He  despised  the  Fingal  for  the  very  reason 
which  led  many  men  of  genius  to  admire  it.  He  de- 
spised it,  not  because  it  was  essentially  commonplace, 
but  because  it  had  a  superficial  air  of  originality. 

He  was  undoubtedly  an  excellent  judge  of  composi- 
tions fashioned  on  his  own  principles.  But  when  a 
deeper  philosophy  was  required,  when  he  undertook 
to  pronounce  judgment  on  the  works  of  those  great 
minds  which  "yield  homage  only  to  eternal  laAvs," 
his  failure  was  ignominious.  He  criticised  Pope's 
Epitaphs  excellently.  But  his  observations  on  Shake- 
speare's plays  and  Milton's  poems  seem  to  us  for  the 
most  part  as  wretched  as  if  they  had  been  written  by 
Ryiner  himself,  whom  we  take  to  have  been  the  worst 
critic  that  ever  lived. 


On  men  and  manners,  at  least  on  the  men  and  man- 
ners of  a  particular  place  and  a  particular  age,  Jolmsor 
had  certainly  looked  with  a  most  observant  and  dis 


GLV  BOS  WELL'S  LIFE   OF  JOHNSOX  149 

criminating  eye.  His  remarks  on  the  education  of 
children,  on  marriage,  on  the  economy  of  families,  on 
the  rules  of  society,  are  always  striking,  and  Social 
generally  sound.  In  his  writings,  indeed,  judgments. 
the  knowledge  of  life  which  he  possessed  in  an  eminent 
degree  is  very  imperfectly  exhibited.  Like  those  un- 
fortunate chiefs  of  the  middle  ages  who  were  suffo- 
cated by  their  own  chain-mail  and  cloth  of  gold,  his 
maxims  perish  under  that  load  of  words  which  was 
designed  for  their  defence  and  their  ornament.  But 
it  is  clear  from  the  remains  of  his  conversation,  that 
he  had  more  of  that  homely  wisdom  which  nothing 
but  experience  and  observation  can  give  than  any 
writer  since  the  time  of  Swift.  If  he  had  been  con- 
tent to  write  as  he  talked,  he  might  have  left  books  011 
the  practical  art  of  living  superior  to  the  Directions  to 
Servants. 


Johnson,  as  Mr.  Burke  most  justly  observed,  appears 
far  greater  in  Boswell's  books  than  in  his  own.  His 
conversation  appears  to  have  been  quite  Johnson's 
equal  to  his  writings  in  matter,  and  far  sty*e- 
superior  to  them  in  manner.  When  he  talked,  he 
clothed  his  wit  and  his  sense  in  forcible  and  natural 


150        SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY'S  ESSAY 

expressions.  As  soon  as  he  took  his  pen  in  his  hand 
to  write  for  the  public,  his  style  became  systematically 
vicious.  All  his  books  are  written  in  a  learned  lan- 
guage, in  a  language  which  nobody  hears  from  his 
mother  or  his  nurse,  in  a  language  in  which  nobody 
ever  quarrels,  or  drives  bargains,  or  makes  love,  in  a 
language  in  which  nobody  ever  thinks.  It  is  clear 
that  Johnson  himself  did  not  think  in  the  dialect  in 
which  he  wrote.  The  expressions  which  came  first  to 
his  tongue  were  simple,  energetic,  and  picturesque. 
When  he  wrote  for  publication,  he  did  his  sentences 
out  of  English  into  Johnsonese.  His  letters  from  the 
Hebrides  to  Mrs.  Thrale  are  the  original  of  that  work 
of  which  the  Journey  to  the  Hebrides  is  the  transla- 
tion; and  it  is  amusing  to  compare  the  two  versions. 
"  When  we  were  taken  upstairs,"  says  he  in  one  of  his 
letters,  "  a  dirty  fellow  bounced  out  of  the  bed  on 
which  one  of  us  was  to  lie."  This  incident  is  recorded 
in  the  Journey  as  follows  :  "  Out  of  one  of  the  beds  on 
which  we  were  to  repose,  started  up,  at  our  entrance,  a 
man  black  as  a  Cyclops  from  the  forge."  Sometimes 
Johnson  translated  aloud.  "  The  Rehearsal"  he  said 
very  unjustly,  "  has  not  wit  enough  to  keep  it  sweet ; " 
then,  after  a  pause,  "  it  has  not  vitality  enough  to  pre- 
serve it  from  putrefaction." 


CLV  BOS  WELL'S  LIFE   OF  JOHNSON  151 

Mannerism  is  pardonable,  and  is  sometimes  even 
agreeable,  when  the  manner,  though  vicious,  is  natural. 

Few  readers,  for  example,  would  be  willing 

,  .  Mannerism. 

to  part  with  the  mannerism  ot  Milton  or 

of  Burke.  But  a  mannerism  which  does  not  sit  easy 
on  the  mannerist,  which  has  been  adopted  on  principle, 
and  which  can  be  sustained  only  by  constant  effort, 
is  always  offensive.  And  such  is  the  mannerism  of 
Johnson. 

The  characteristic  faults  of  his  style  are  so  familiar 
to  all  our  readers,  and  have  been  so  often  burlesqued, 
that  it  is  almost  superfluous  to  point  them  out.  It  is 
well  known  that  he  made  less  use  than  any  other  emi- 
nent writer  of  those  strong  plain  words,  Anglo-Saxon 
or  Norman-French,  of  which  the  roots  lie  in  the  inmost 
depths  of  our  language ;  and  that  he  felt  a  vicious  par- 
tiality for  terms  which,  long  after  our  own  speech  had 
been  fixed,  were  borrowed  from  the  Greek  and  Latin, 
and  which,  therefore,  even  when  lawfully  naturalised, 
must  be  considered  as  born  aliens,  not  entitled  to  rank 
with  the  king's  English.  His  constant  practice  of 
padding  out  a  sentence  with  useless  epithets,  till  it 
became  as  stiff  as  the  bust  of  an  exquisite,  his  anti- 
thetical forms  of  expression,  constantly  employed  even 
where  there  is  no  opposition  in  the  ideas  expressed, 


152        SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY'S  £SSAY 

his  big  words  wasted  on  little  things,  his  harsh  inver- 
sions, so  widely  different  from  those  graceful  and  easy 
inversions  which  give  variety,  spirit,  and  sweetness  to 
the  expression  of  our  great  old  writers,  all  these  pecu- 
liarities have  been  imitated  by  his  admirers  and  paro- 
died by  his  assailants,  till  the  public  has  become  sick 
of  the  subject. 

Goldsmith  said  to  him,  very  wittily  and  very  justly, 
"  if  you  were  to  write  a  fable  about  little  fishes,  doctor, 
you  would  make  the  little  fishes  talk  like  whales."  No 
man  surely  ever  had  so  little  talent  for  personation  as 
Johnson.  Whether  he  wrote  in  the  character  of  a  dis- 
appointed legacy-hunter  or  an  empty  town  fop,  of  a 
crazy  virtuoso  or  a  flippant  coquette,  he  wrote  in  the 
same  pompous  and  unbending  style.  His  speech,  like 
Sir  Piercy  Shafton's  Euphuistic  eloquence,  bewrayed 
Examples  him  nnder  every  disguise.  Euphelia  and 
of  his  style.  Ehodoclea  talk  as  finely  as  Imlac  the  poet, 
or  Seged,  Emperor  of  Ethiopia.  The  gay  Cornelia  de- 
scribes her  reception  at  the  country-house  of  her  rela- 
tions, in  such  terms  as  these :  "  I  was  surprised,  after 
the  civilities  of  my  first  reception,  to  find,  instead  of 
the  leisure  and  tranquillity  which  a  rural  life  always 
promises,  and,  if  well  conducted,  might  always  afford, 
a  confused  wildness  of  care,  and  a  tumultuous  hurry 


ON  BOS  WELL'S  LIFE   OF  JOHNSON  153 

of  diligence,  by  which  every  face  was  clouded,  and 
every  motion  agitated."  The  gentle  Trauquilla  in- 
forms us,  that  she  "had  riot  passed  the" earlier  part  of 
life  without  the  flattery  of  courtship,  and  the  joys  of 
triumph ;  but  had  danced  the  round  of  gaiety  amidst 
the  murmurs  of  envy  and  the  gratulations  of  applause, 
had  been  attended  from  pleasure  to  pleasure  by  the 
great,  the  sprightly,  and  the  vain,  and  had  seen  her 
regard  solicited  by  the  obsequiousness  of  gallantry,  the 
gaiety  of  wit,  and  the  timidity  of  love."  Surely  Sir 
John  Falstaff  himself  did  not  wear  his  petticoats  with 
a  worse  grace.  The  reader  may  well  cry  out,  with 
honest  Sir  Hugh  Evans,  "  I  like  not  when  a  'oman  has 
a  great  peard  :  I  spy  a  great  peard  under  her  muffler." 


APPENDIX   A 

77.    Selections  from  Carlyle's  Essay  on  BoswelVs  Life  of 
Johnson.  —  Eraser's  Magazine,  1832. 

[This  is  in  a  way  an  answer  to  Macaulay's  Essay.] 

The  great  man  does,  in  good  truth,  belong  to  his  own 
age ;  nay,  more  so  than  any  other  man ;  being  properly 
the  synopsis  and  epitome  of  such  age  with  its  interests 
and  influences :  but  belongs  likewise  to  all  ages,  other- 
wise he  is  not  great.  What  was  transitory  in  him 
passes  away ;  and  an  immortal  part  remains,  the 
significance  of  which  is  in  strict  speech  inexhaustible, 
—  as  that  of  every  real  object  is.  Aloft,  conspicuous, 
on  his  enduring  basis,  he  stands  there,  serene,  unalter- 
ing ;  silently  addresses  to  every  new  generation  a  new 
lesson  and  monition.  Well  is  his  Life  worth  writing, 
worth  interpreting ;  and  ever,  in  the  new  dialect  of 
new  times,  of  re-writing  and  re-interpreting. 

Of  such  chosen  men  was  Samuel  Johnson:  not 
ranking  among  the  highest,  or  even  the  high,  yet 
distinctly  admitted  into  that  sacred  band ;  whose  ex- 
istence was  no  idle  Dream,  but  a  Reality  which  he 

154 


BOS  WELL'S  LIFE  OF  JOHNSON  155 

transacted  awake  ;  nowise  a  Clothesborse  and  Patent 
Digester,  but  a  genuine  Man.  By  nature  he  was 
gifted  for  the  noblest  of  earthly  tasks,  that  of  Priest- 
hood, and  Guidance  of  mankind;  by  destiny,  more- 
over, he  was  appointed  to  this  task,  and  did  actually, 
according  to  strength,  fulfil  the  same :  so  that  always 
the  question,  How  ;  in  what  sjiirit  ;  under  what  shaj><}  ? 
remains  for  us  to  be  asked  and  answered  concerning 
him. 


The  Contradiction  which  yawns  wide  enough  in 
every  Life,  which  it  is  the  meaning  and  task  of  Life 
to  reconcile,  was  in  Johnson's  wider  than  Johnson's 
in  most.  Seldom,  for  any  man,  has  the  contradic- 
contrast  between  the  ethereal  heavenward  tlons~ 
side  of  things,  and  the  dark  sordid  earthward,  been 
more  glaring  :  whether  we  look  at  Nature's  work  with 
him  or  Fortune's,  from  first  to  last,  heterogeneity,  as 
of  sunbeams  and  miry  clay,  is  on  all  hands  manifest. 
Whereby  indeed,  only  this  was  declared,  That  much 
Life  had  been  given  him ;  many  things  to  triumph 
over,  a  great  work  to  do.  Happily  also  he  did  it; 
better  than  the  most. 

Nature  had  given  him  a  high,  keen-visioned,  almost 


156         SELECTIONS    FROM    CARLYLE'S    ESSAY 

poetic  soul ;  yet  withal  imprisoned  it  in  an  inert,  un- 
sightly body :  he  that  could  never  rest  had  not  limbs 
that  would  move  with  him,  but  only  roll  and  waddle : 
the  inward  eye,  all-penetrating,  all-embracing,  must 
look  through  bodily  windows  that  were  dim,  half- 
blinded;  he  so  loved  men,  and  'never  ouce  so?':  the 
human  face  divine'!  Not  less  did  he  prize  the  love 
of  men  ;  he  was  eminently  social ;  the  approbation  of 
his  fellows  was  dear  to  him,  ;  valuable,'  as  he  owned, 
'if  from  the  meanest  of  human  beings:'  yet  the  first 
impression  he  produced  on  every  man  was  to  be  one 
of  aversion,  almost  of  disgust.  By  Nature  it  was 
farther  ordered  that  the  imperious  Johnson  should  be 
born  poor  :  the  ruler-soul,  strong  in  its  native  royalty, 
generous,  uncontrollable,  like  the  lion  of  the  woods, 
was  to  be  housed  then  in  such  a  dwelling-place:  of 
Disfigurement,  Disease,  and  lastly  of  a  Poverty  which 
itself  made  him  the  servant  of  servants.  Thus  was 
the  born  king  likewise  a  born  slave :  the  divine  spirit 
of  Music  must  awake  imprisoned  amid  dull-croaking 
universal  Discords ;  the  Ariel  finds  himself  encased  in 
the  coarse  hulls  of  a  Caliban.  So  is  it  more  or  less, 
we  know  (and  thou,  0  Reader,  knowest  and  feelest 
even  now),  with  all  men :  yet  with  the  fewest  men  in 
any  such  degree  as  with  Johnson. 


OX    BOS  WELL'S    LIFE    OF   JOHNSON  157 

In  fact,  if  we  look  seriously  into  the  condition  of 
Authorship  at  that  period,  we  shall  find  that  Johnson 
had  undertaken  one  of  the  ruggedest  of  all  ,.  .  , 
possible  enterprises ;  that  here  as  elsewhere  ship"  in 
Fortune  had  given  him  unspeakable  Con-  Johnson's 
tradictions  to  reconcile.  For  a  man  of 
Johnson's  stamp,  the  Problem  was  twofold :  First,  not 
onty  as  the  humble  but  indispensable  condition  of  all 
else,  to  keep  himself,  if  so  might  be,  alive ;  but  secondly, 
to  keep  himself  alive  by  speaking  forth  the  Truth  that 
was  in  him,  and  speaking  it  truly,  that  is,  in  the 
clearest  and  fittest  utterance  the  Heavens  had  enabled 
him  to  give  it,  let  the  Earth  say  to  this  what  she  liked. 
Of  which  twofold  Problem  if  it  be  hard  to  solve  either 
member  separately,  how  incalculably  more  so  to  solve 
it,  when  both  are  conjoined,  and  work  with  endless 
complication  into  one  another  !  He  that  finds  himself 
already  kept  alive  can  sometimes  (unhappily  not  always) 
speak  a  little  truth ;  he  that  finds  himself  able  and 
willing,  to  all  lengths,  to  speak  lies,  may,  by  watching 
how  the  wind  sits,  scrape  together  a  livelihood,  some- 
times of  great  splendor :  he,  again,  who  finds  himself 
provided  with  neither  endowment,  has  but  a  ticklish 
game  to  play,  and  shall  have  praise  if  he  win  it.  Let 
us  look  a  little  at  both  faces  of  the  matter;  and  see 


158         SELECTIONS   FROM    CARLYLE'S   ESSAY 

what  front  they  then  offered   our  Adventurer,  what 
front  he  offered  them. 

At  the  time  of  Johnson's  appearance  on  the  field, 
Literature,  in  many  senses,  was  in  a  transitional  state ; 
Patron  and  chiefly  in  this  sense,  as  respects  the  pecuni- 
bookseller.  ary  subsistence  of  its  cultivators.  It  was  in 
the  very  act  of  passing  from  the  protection  of  Patrons 
into  that  of  the  Public;  no  longer  to  supply  its  neces- 
sities by  laudatory  Dedications  to  the  Great,  but  by 
judicious  Bargains  with  the  Booksellers.  This  happy 
change  has  been  much  sung  and  celebrated  ;  many 
a  '  lord  of  the  lion  heart  and  eagle  eye '  looking 
back  with  scorn  enough  on  the  bygone  system  of  De- 
pendency :  so  that  now  it  were  perhaps  well  to  con- 
sider, for  a  moment,  what  good  might  also  be  in  it, 
what  gratitude  we  owe  it.  That  a  good  was  in  it, 
admits  not  of  doubt.  Whatsoever  has  existed  has  had 
its  value :  without  some  truth  and  worth  lying  in  it, 
the  thing  could  not  have  hung  together,  and  been  the 
organ  and  sustenance,  and  method  of  action,  for  men 
that  reasoned  and  were  alive.  Translate  a  Falsehood 
which  is  wholly  false  into  Practice,  the  result  comes 
out  zero  ;  there  is  no  fruit  or  issue  to  be  derived  from 
it.  That  in  an  age  when  a  Nobleman  was  still  noble, 
still  with  his  wealth  the  protector  of  worthy  and 


ON   BOS  WELL'S   LIFE    OF   JOHNSON  159 

humane  things,  and  still  venerated  as  such,  a  poor 
Man  of  Genius,  his  brother  in  nobleness,  should,  with 
unfeigned  reverence,  address  him  and  say :  "  I  have 
found  Wisdom  here,  and  would  fain  proclaim  it  abroad; 
wilt  them,  of  thy  abundance,  afford  me  the  means  ?  " 
—  in  all  this  there  was  no  baseness  ;  it  was  wholly  an 
honest  proposal,  which  a  free  man  might  make,  and  a 
free  man  listen  to.  So  might  a  Tasso,  with  a  Geru- 
salemme  in  his  hand  or  in  his  head,  speak  to  a  Duke  of 
Ferrara  ;  so  might  a  Shakspeare  to  his  Southampton  ; 
and  Continental  Artists  generally  to  their  rich  Pro- 
tectors, —  in  some  countries,  down  almost  to  these 
days.  It  was  only  when  the  reverence  became  feigned 
that  baseness  entered  into  the  transaction  on  both 
sides ;  and,  indeed,  flourished  there  with  rapid  luxuri- 
ance, till  that  became  disgraceful  for  a  Dryden,  which 
a  Shakspeare  could  once  practise  without  offence. 

Neither,  it  is  very  true,  was  the  new  way  of  Book- 
seller Maecenasship  worthless ;  which  opened  itself  at 
this  juncture,  for  the  most  important  of  all  transport- 
trades,  now  when  the  old  way  had  become  too  miry 
and  impassable.  Remark,  moreover,  how  this  second 
sort  of  Msecenasship,  after  carrying  us  through  nearly 
a  century  of  Literary  Time,  appears  now  to  have  well- 
nigh  discharged  its  function  also ;  and  to  be  working 


160         SELECTIONS    FROM    CARLYLE'S    ESSAY 

pretty  rapidly  toward  some  third  method,  the  exact 
conditions  of  which  are  yet  nowise  visible.  Thus  all 
things  have  their  end ;  and  we  should  part  with  them 
all,  not  in  anger,  but  in  peace.  The  Bookseller-System, 
during  its  peculiar  century,  the  whole  of  the  eighteenth, 
did  carry  us  handsomely  along,  and  many  good  ^Yo^ks 
it  has  left  us ;  and  many  good  Men  it  maintained  :  if 
it  is  now  expiring  by  PUFFERY,  as  the  Patronage-Sys- 
tem did  by  FLATTERY  (for  Lying  is  ever  the  forerunner 
of  Death,  nay  is  itself  Death),  let  us  not  forget  its 
benefits;  how  it  nursed  Literature  through  boyhood 
and  school-years,  as  Patronage  had  wrapped  it  in  soft 
swaddling-bands  ;  —  till  now  we  see  it  about  to  put  on 
the  toga  virilis,  could  it  but  find  any  such ! 

There  is  tolerable  traveling  on  the  beaten  road,  run 
how  it  may ;  only  on  the  new  road  not  yet  leveled  and 
paved,  and  on  the  old  road  all  broken  into  ruts  and 
quagmires,  is  the  traveling  bad  or  impracticable.  The 
difficulty  lies  always  in  the  transition  from  one  method 
to  another.  In  which  state  it  was  that  Johnson  now 
found  Literature ;  and  out  of  which,  let  us  also  say, 
he  manfully  carried  it.  What  remarkable  mortal  first 
paid  copyright  in  England  we  have  not  ascertained ; 
perhaps,  for  almost  a  century  before,  some  scarce  visi- 
ble or  ponderable  pittance  of  wages  had  occasionally 


CLV    BOS  WELL'S    LIFE    OF   JOHNSON  161 

been  yielded  by  the  Seller  of  Books  to  the  Writer  of 
them :  the  original  Covenant,  stipulating  to  produce 
Paradise  Lost  on  the  one  hand,  and  Five  Pounds  Ster- 
ling on  the  other,  still  lies  (we  have  been  told)  in 
black-on-\vhite,  for  inspection  and  purchase  by  the  curi- 
ous, at  a  Bookshop  in  Chancery -Lane.  Thus  had  the 
matter  gone  on,  in  a  mixed  confused  way,  for  some 
threescore  years ;  — as  ever,  in  such  things,  the  old  sys- 
tem overlaps  the  new,  by  some  generation  or  two,  and 
only  dies  quite  out  when  the  new  has  got  a  complete 
organization  and  weather-worthy  surface  of  its  own. 
Among  the  first  Authors,  the  very  first  of  any  signifi- 
cance, who  lived  by  the  day's  wages  of  his  craft,  and 
composedly  faced  the  world  on  that  basis,  was  Samuel 
Johnson. 

At  the  time  of  Johnson's  appearance  there  were  still 
two  ways  on  which  an  Author  might  attempt  proceed- 
ing :  there  were  the  Maecenases  proper  in  the  West 
End  of  London ;  and  the  Maecenases  virtual  of  St. 
John's  Gate  and  Paternoster  Row.  To  a  considerate 
man  it  might  seem  uncertain  which  method  were 
preferable :  neither  had  very  high  attractions ;  the 
Patron's  aid  was  now  wellnigh  necessarily  polluted  by 
sycophancy,  before  it  could  come  to  hand ;  the  Book- 
seller's was  deformed  with  greedy  stupidity,  not  to  say 


162         SELECTIONS    FROM    CARLYLE'S    ESSAY 

entire  wooden-headedness  and  disgust  (so  that  an 
Osborne  even  required  to  be  knocked  down,  by  an 
author  of  spirit),  and  could  barely  keep  the  thread  of 
life  together.  The  one  was  the  wages  of  suffering  and 
poverty ;  the  other,  unless  you  gave  strict  heed  to  it, 
the  wages  of  sin.  In  time,  Johnson  had  opportunity 
of  looking  into  both  methods,  and  ascertaining  what 
they  were ;  but  found,  at  first  trial,  that  the  former 
would  in  nowise  do  for  him. 


Little  less  contradictory  was  that  other  branch  of  the 
twofold  Problem  now  set  before  Johnson :  the  speaking 
Johnson  forth  of  Truth.  Nay,  taken  by  itself,  it 

and  "  Truth."  na(j  jn  those  days  become  so  complex  as 
to  puzzle  strongest  heads,  with  nothing  else  imposed 
on  them  for  solution;  and  even  to  turn  high  heads 
of  that  sort  into  mere  hollow  vizards,  speaking 
neither  truth  nor  falsehood,  nor  anything  but  what 
the  Prompter  and  Player  (vrroxptT^s)  put  into  them. 
Alas!  for  poor  Johnson  Contradiction  abounded;  in 
spirituals  and  in  temporals,  within  and  without. 
Born  with  the  strongest  unconquerable  love  of  just 
Insight,  he  must  begin  to  live  and  learn  in  a  scene 
where  Prejudice  flourishes  with  rank  luxuriance.  Erg- 


OJV   BOS  WELL'S    LIFE    OF   JOHNSON  163 

land  was  all  confused  enough,  sightless  and  yet  rest- 
less, take  it  where  you  would ;  but  figure  the  best 
intellect  in  England  nursed  up  to  manhood  in  the  idol- 
cavern  of  a  poor  Tradesman's  house,  in  the  cathedral 
city  of  Lichfield ! 


It  was  wholly  a  divided  age,  that  of  Johnson; 
Unity  existed  nowhere,  in  its  Heaven,  or  in  its  Earth. 
Society,  through  every  fibre,  was  rent  asunder :  all 
things,  it  was  then  becoming  visible,  but  could  not 
then  be  understood,  were  movmg  onwards,  with  an 
impulse  received  ages  before,  yet  now  first  with  a 
decisive  rapidity,  towards  that  great  chaotic  gulf, 
where,  whether  in  the  shape  of  French  Revolutions, 
Reform  Bills,  or  what  shape  soever,  bloody  or  blood- 
less, the  descent  and  engulfment  assume,  we  now  see 
them  weltering  and  boiling.  Already  Cant,  as  once  be- 
fore hinted,  had  begun  to  play  its  wonderful  part,  for 
the  hour  was  come :  two  ghastly  Apparitions,  unreal 
simulacra  both,  HYPOCRISY  and  ATHEISM,  are  already, 
in  silence,  parting  the  world.  Opinion  and  Action, 
which  should  live  together  as  wedded  pair,  '  one  flesh/ 
more  properly  as  Soul  and  Body,  have  commenced  their 
open  quarrel,  and  are  suing  for  a  separate  maintenance, 


164         SELECTIONS    FROM    CARLYLE'S    ESSAY 

—  as  if  they  could  exist  separately.  To  the  earnest 
mind,  in  any  position,  firm  footing  and  a  life  of  Truth 
was  becoming  daily  more  difficult :  in  Johnson's  position 
it  was  more  difficult  than  in  almost  any  other. 

If,  as  for  a  devout  nature  was  inevitable  and  in- 
dispensable, he  looked  up  to  Religion,  as  to  the  pole- 
star  of  his  voyage,  already  there   was   no 
Religion.       ,      ,        ,  ,  .   .,  ,        , 

fixed  polestar  any  longer  visible ;   but  two 

stars,  a  whole  constellation  of  stars,  each  proclaiming 
itself  as  the  true.  There  was  the  red  portentous 
comet-star  of  Infidelity ;  the  dim  fixed-star,  burning 
ever  dimmer,  uncertain  now  whether  not  an  atmos- 
pheric meteor,  of  Orthodoxy:  which  of  these  to 
choose  ?  The  keener  intellects  of  Europe  had,  almost 
without  exception,  ranged  themselves  under  the 
former:  for  some  half  century,  it  had  been  the 
general  effort  of  European  speculation  to  proclaim 
that  Destruction  of  Falsehood  was  the  only  Truth ; 
daily  had  Denial  waxed  stronger  and  stronger,  Belief 
sunk  more  and  more  into  decay.  From  our  Boling- 
brokes  and  Tolands  the  sceptical  fever  had  passed  into 
France,  into  Scotland ;  and  already  it  smouldered,  far 
and  wide,  secretly  eating  out  the  heart  of  England. 
Bayle  had  played  his  part;  Voltaire,  on  a  wider 
theatre,  was  playing  his,  —  Johnson's  senior  by  some 


ON    BOSWELL'S    LIFE    OF    JOHNSON  165 

fifteen  years :  Hume  and  Johnson  were  children 
almost  of  the  same  year.  To  this  keener  order  of 
intellects  did  Johnson's  indisputably  belong :  -was  he 
to  join  them ;  was  he  to  oppose  them  ?  A  compli- 
cated question :  for,  alas,  the  Church  itself  is  no  longer, 
even  to  him,  wholly  of  true  adamant,  but  of  adamant 
and  baked  mud  conjoined :  the  zealously  Devout  has 
to  find  his  Church  tottering ;  and  paused  amazed  to 
see,  instead  of  inspired  Priest,  many  a  swine-feeding 
Trulliber  ministering  at  her  altar.  It  is  not  the  least 
curious  of  the  incoherences  which  Johnson  had  to 
reconcile,  that,  though  by  nature  contemptuous  and 
incredulous,  he  was,  at  that  time  of  day,  to  find  his 
safety  and  glory  in  defending,  with  his  whole  might, 
the  traditions  of  the  elders. 


Not  less  perplexingly  intricate,  and  on  both  sides 
hollow  or   questionable,  was  the   aspect   of  Politics. 
Whigs  struggling  blindly  forward,  Tories 
holding  blindly  back ;  each  with  some  fore- 
cast of  a  half  truth ;  neither  with  any  forecast  of  the 
whole !     Admire  here  this  other  Contradiction  in  the 
life  of  Johnson ;  that,  though  the  most  ungovernable, 
and  in  practice  the  most  independent  of  men,  he  must 


166         SELECTIONS   FROM    CARLYLE'S   ESSAY 

be  a  Jacobite  and  worshiper  of  the  Divine  Eight.  In 
politics  also  there  are  Irreconcilables  enough  for  him. 
As,  indeed,  how  could  it  be  otherwise  ?  For  when 
Religion  is  torn  asunder,  and  the  very  heart  of  man's 
existence  set  against  itself,  then  in  all  subordinate  depart- 
ments there  must  needs  be  hollowness,  incoherence. 


Such  was  that  same  <  twofold  Problem '  set  before 
Samuel  Johnson.  Consider  all  these  moral  difficul- 
johnson's  ties ;  and  add  to  them  the  fearful  aggrava- 
problem.  tion,  which  lay  in  that  other  circumstance, 
that  he  needed  a  continual  appeal  to  the  Public,  must 
continually  produce  a  certain  impression  and  con- 
viction on  the  Public ;  that,  if  he  did  not,  he  ceased 
to  have  '  provision  for  the  day  that  was  passing  over 
him,'  he  could  not  any  longer  live !  How  a  vulgar 
character,  once  launched  into  this  wild  element; 
driven  onwards  by  Fear  and  Famine ;  without  other 
aim  than  to  clutch  what  Provender  (of  Enjoyment  in 
any  kind)  he  could  get,  always  if  possible  keeping 
quite  clear  of  the  Gallows  and  Pillory,  that  is  to  say, 
minding  needfully  both  'person'  and  'character,'  — 
would  have  floated  hither  and  thither  in  it ;  and  con- 
trived to  eat  some  three  repasts  daily,  and  wear  some 


ON   BOS  WELL'S    LIFE    OF    JOHNSON  167 

three  suits  yearly,  and  then  to  depart  and  disappear, 
having  consumed  his  last  ration:  all  this  might  be 
worth  knowing,  but  were  in  itself  a  trivial  knowledge. 
How  a  noble  man,  resolute  for  the  Truth,  to  whom 
Shams  and  Lies  were  once  for  all  an  abomination,  was 
to  act  in  it :  here  lay  the  mystery.  By  what  methods, 
by  what  gifts  of  eye  and  hand,  does  a  heroic  Samuel 
Johnson,  now  when  cast  forth  into  that  waste  Chaos 
of  Authorship,  maddest  of  things,  a  mingled  Phlege- 
thon  and  Fleetditch,  with  its  floating  lumber,  and  sea- 
krakens,  and  mud-spectres,  —  shape  himself  a  voyage; 
of  the  transient  driftwood,  and  the  enduring  iron, 
build  him  a  sea-worthy  Life-boat,  and  sail  therein, 
undrowned,  unpolluted,  through  the  roaring  'mother 
of  dead  dogs,'  onwards  to  an  eternal  Landmark,  and 
City  that  hath  foundations  ?  This  high  question  is 
even  the  one  answered  in  Bos  well's  Book  ;  which  Book 
we  therefore,  not  so  falsely,  have  named  a  Heroic 
Poem;  for  in  it  there  lies  the  whole  argument  of  such. 
Glory  to  our  brave  Samuel !  He  accomplished  this 
wonderful  Problem ;  and  now  through  long  genera- 
tions we  point  to  him,  and  say :  '  Here  also  was  a 
Man;  let  the  world  once  more  have  assurance  of 
a  Man!' 

Had  there  been  in  Johnson,  now  when  afloat  on  that 


168         SELECTIONS    FROM    CARLTLE'S   ESSAY 

confusion  worse  confounded  of  grandeur  and  squalor, 
no  light  but  an  earthly  outward  one,  he  too  must 
Johnson's  have  made  shipwreck.  With  his  diseased 
"light."  body,  and  vehement  voracious  heart,  how 
easy  for  him  to  become  a  carpe-diem  Philosopher, 
like  the  rest,  and  live  and  die  as  miserably  as  any 
Boyce  of  that  Brotherhood!  But  happily  there  was 
a  higher  light  for  him;  shining  as  a  lamp  to  his 
path;  which,  in  all  paths,  would  teach' him  to  act  and 
walk  not  as  a  fool,  but  as  wise,  and  in  those  evil  days 
too,  '  redeeming  the  time.'  Under  dimmer  or  clearer 
manifestations,  a  Truth  had  been  revealed  to  him  : 
'I  also  am  a  Man;  even  in  this  unutterable  element 
of  Authorship,  I  may  live  as  beseems  a  Man ! '  That 
Wrong  is  not  only  different  from  Right,  but  that  it 
is  in  strict  scientific  terms  infinitely  different;  even  as 
the  gaining  of  the  whole  world  set  against  the  losing 
of  one's  own  soul,  or  (as  Johnson  had  it)  a  Heaven  set 
against  a  Hell ;  that  in  all  situations  out  of  the  Pit  of 
Tophet,  wherein  a  living  Man  has  stood  or  can  stand, 
there  is  actually  a  Prize  of  quite  infinite  value  placed 
within  his  reach,  namely  a  Duty  for  him  to  do :  this 
highest  Gospel,  which  forms  the  basis  and  worth  of 
all  other  Gospels  whatsoever,  had  been  revealed  to 
Samuel  Johnson ;  and  the  man  had  believed  it,  and 


ON    BOS  WALL'S    LIFE    OF    JOHNSON  169 

laid  it  faithfully  to  heart.  Such  knowledge  of  the 
transcendental,  immeasurable  character  of  Duty  we  call 
the  basis  of  all  Gospels,  the  essence  of  all  Keligion  : 
he  who  with  his  whole  soul  knows  not  this,  as  yet 
knows  nothing,  as  yet  is  properly  nothing. 

This,  happily  for  him,  Johnson  was  one  of  those 
that  knew :  under  a  certain  authentic  Symbol  it  stood 
forever  present  to  his  eyes :  a  Symbol,  in-  Johnson's 
deed,  waxing  old  as  doth  a  garment ;  yet  religion. 
which  had  guided  forward,  as  their  Banner  and  celes- 
tial Pillar  of  Fire,  innumerable  saints  and  wit- 
nesses, the  fathers  of  our  modern  world ;  and  for  him 
also  had  still  a  sacred  significance.  It  does  not 
appear  that  at  any  time  Johnson  was  what  wre  call 
irreligious :  but  in  his  sorrows  and  isolation,  when 
hope  died  away,  and  only  a  long  vista  of  suffering 
and  toil  lay  before  him  to  the  end,  then  first  did 
Religion  shine  forth  in  its  meek,  everlasting  clear- 
ness ;  even  as  the  stars  do  in  black  night,  which  in 
the  daytime  and  dusk  were  hidden  by  inferior  lights. 
How  a  true  man,  in  the  midst  of  errors  and  uncer- 
tainties, shall  work  out  for  himself  a  sure  Life-truth : 
and,  adjusting  the  transient  to  the  eternal,  amid  the 
fragments  of  ruined  Temples  build  up  with  toil  and 
pain  a  little  Altar  for  himself,  and  worship  there ;  how 


170         SELECTIONS    FROM    CARLYLE'S    ESSAY 

Samuel  Johnson,  in  the  era  of  Voltaire,  can  purify 
and  fortify  his  soul,  and  hold  real  comnmuion  with 
the  Highest,  '  in  the  Church  of  St.  Clement  Danes : ' 
this  too  stands  all  unfolded  in  his  Biography,  and  is 
among  the  most  touching  and  memorable  things  there  ; 
a  thing  to  be  looked  at  with  pity,  admiration,  awe. 
Johnson's  Keligion  was  as  the  light  of  life  to  him  ; 
without  it  his  heart  was  all  sick,  dark,  and  had  no 
guidance  left. 


He   is  now  enlisted,  or   impressed,  into  that  un- 
speakable  shoeblack-seraph   Army   of   Authors ;    but 

Character  cau  ^ee*  nereky  ^at  ^e  fights  under  a 
and  attain-  celestial  flag,  and  will  quit  him  like  a 
ments.  man.  The  first  grand  requisite,  an  assured 

heart,  he  therefore  has :  what  his  outward  equipments 
and  accoutrements  are,  is  the  next  question ;  an  im- 
portant though  inferior  one.  His  intellectual  stock, 
intrinsically  viewed,  is  perhaps  inconsiderable;  the 
furnishings  of  an  English  School  and  English  Uni- 
versity ;  good  knowledge  of  the  Latin  tongue,  a  more 
uncertain  one  of  Greek :  this  is  a  rather  slender  stock 
of  Education  wherewith  to  front  the  world.  But  then 
it  is  to  be  remembered  that  his  world  was  England ; 


OX   BOSWELL'S   LIFE    OF   JOHNSON  171 

that  such  was  the  culture  England  commonly  supplied 
and  expected.  Besides,  Johnson  has  been  a  voracious 
reader,  though  a  desultory  one,  and  oftenest  in  strange, 
scholastic,  too  obsolete  Libraries ;  he  has  also  rubbed 
shoulders  with  the  press  of  Actual  Life  for  some  thirty 
years  now :  views  or  hallucinations  of  innumerable 
things  are  weltering  to  and  fro  in  him.  Above  all,  be 
his  weapons  what  they  may,  he  has  an  arm  that  can 
wield  them.  Nature  has  given  him  her  choicest  gift, 
—  an  open  eye  and  heart.  He  will  look  on  the  world, 
wheresoever  he  can  catch  a  glimpse  of  it,  with  eager 
curiosity :  to  the  last,  we  find  this  a  striking  charac- 
teristic of  him ;  for  all  human  interests  he  has  a  sense ; 
the  meanest  handicraftsman  could  interest  him,  even 
in  extreme  age,  by  speaking  of  his  craft :  the  ways  of 
men  are  all  interesting  to  him  ;  any  human  thing  that 
he  did  not  know,  he  wished  to  know.  Eeflection,  more- 
over, Meditation,  was  what  he  practised  incessantly, 
with  or  without  his  will:  for  the  mind  of  the  man 
was  earnest,  deep  as  well  as  humane.  Thus  would 
the  world,  such  fragments  of  it  as  he  could  survey, 
form  itself,  or  continually  tend  to  form  itself,  into  a 
coherent  Whole ;  on  any  and  on  all  phases  of  which, 
his  vote  and  voice  must  be  well  worth  listening  to. 
As  a  speaker  of  the  Word,  he  will  speak  real  words ; 


172         SELECTIONS    FROM    CARLYLE'S    ESSAY 

no  idle  jargon  or  hollow  triviality  will  issue  from  him. 
His  aim  too  is  clear,  attainable ;  that  of  working  for 
his  ivages  :  let  him  do  this  honestly,  and  all  else  will 
follow  of  its  own  accord. 


Poverty,  Distress,  and  as  yet  Obscurity,  are  his 
companions :  so  poor  is  he  that  his  Wife  must  leave 
him,  and  seek  shelter  among  other  relations ;  John- 
son's household  has  accommodations  for  one  inmate 
only.  To  all  his  ever-varying,  ever-recurring  troubles, 
moreover,  must  be  added  this  continual  one  of  ill- 
health  and  its  concomitant  depressiveness :  a  galling 
Poverty  load,  which  would  have  crushed  most 
and  common  mortals  into  desperation,  is  his 

nty'  appointed  ballast  and  life-burden ;  he 
'could  not  remember  the  day  he  had  passed  free 
from  pain.'  Nevertheless,  Life,  as  we  said  before,  is 
always  Life :  a  healthy  soul,  imprison  it  as  you  will, 
in  squalid  garrets,  shabby  coat,  bodily  sickness,  or 
whatever  else,  will  assert  its  heaven-granted  indefeasi- 
ble Freedom,  its  right  to  conquer  difficulties,  to  do 
work,  even  to  feel  gladness.  Johnson  does  not  whine 
over  his  existence,  but  manfully  makes  the  most  and 
best  of  it.  '  He  said,  a  man  might  live  in  a  garret 


ON  BOS  WELL'S   LIFE    OF   JOHNSON  173 

at  eighteenpence  a-week:  few  people  would  inquire 
where  he  lodged ;  and  if  they  did,  it  was  easy  to  say, 
"  Sir,  I  am  to  be  found  at  such  a  place."  By  spending 
threepence  in  a  coffee-house,  he  might  be  for  some 
hours  every  day  in  very  good  company;  he  might 
dine  for  sixpence,  breakfast  on  bread-and-milk  for  a 
penny,  and  do  without  supper.  On  clean-shirt  day  he 
went  abroad  and  paid  visits.'  Think  by  whom  and  of 
whom  this  was  uttered,  and  ask  then,  Whether  there 
is  more  pathos  in  it  than  in  a  whole  circulating-library 
of  Giaours  and  Harolds,  or  less  pathos  ? 


Obscurity,  however,  was,  in  Johnson's  case,  whether 
a  light  or  heavy  evil,  likely  to  be  no  lasting  one. 
He  is  animated  by  the  spirit  of  a  true  Sitccess 
workman,  resolute  to  do  his  work  well ;  and  fame. 
and  he  does  his  work  well;  all  his  work,  that  of 
writing,  that  of  living.  A  man  of  this  stamp  is  un- 
happily not  so  common  in  the  literary  or  in  any  other 
department  of  the  world,  that  he  can  continue  always 
unnoticed.  By  slow  degrees,  Johnson  emerges ;  loom- 
ing, at  first,  huge  and  dim  in  the  eye  of  an  observant 
few ;  at  last  disclosed,  in  his  real  proportions,  to  the 
eye  of  the  whole  world,  and  encircled  with  a  'light- 


174         SELECTIONS   FROM    CARLYLE'S   ESSAY 

nimbus'  of  glory,  so  that  whoso  is  not  blind  must  and 
shall  behold  him.  By  slow  degrees,  we  said ;  for  this 
also  is  notable  ;  slow  but  sure :  as  his  fame  waxes 
not  by  exaggerated  clamor  of  what  he  seems  to  be,  but 
by  better  and  better  insight  of  what  he  is,  so  it  will 
last  and  stand  wearing,  being  genume.  Thus  indeed 
is  it  always,  or  nearly  always,  with  true  fame.  The 
heavenly  Luminary  rises  amid  vapors ;  stargazers 
enough  must  scan  it  with  critical  telescopes ;  it  makes 
no  blazing,  the  world  can  either  look  at  it,  or  forbear 
looking  at  it;  not  till  after  a  time  and  times  does  its 
celestial  eternal  nature  become  indubitable.  Pleasant, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  the  blazing  of  a  Tarbarrel ;  the 
crowd  dance  merrily  round  it,  with  loud  huzzaing,  uni- 
versal three-times-three,  and,  like  Homer's  peasants, 
'  bless  the  useful  light : '  but  unhappily  it  so  soon  ends 
in  darkness,  foul  choking  smoke ;  and  is  kicked  into 
the  gutters,  a  nameless  imbroglio  of  charred  staves, 
pitch-cinders,  and  vomissement  du  diable  I 


If  Destiny  had  beaten  hard  on  poor  Samuel,  and  did 
never  cease  to  visit  him  too  roughly,  yet  the  last  section 
of  his  Life  might  be  pronounced  victorious,  and  on  the 
whole  happy.  He  was  not  idle;  but  now  no  longer 


ON    JB  OS  WELL'S    LIFE    OF    JOHNSON  175 

goaded-on  by  want;  the  light  which  had  shone 
irradiating  the  dark  haunts  of  Poverty,  now  illu- 
minates the  circles  of  "Wealth,  of  a  certain  culture 
and  elegant  intelligence ;  he  who  had  once  been 
admitted  to  speak  with  Edmund  Cave  and  Tobacco 
Browne,  now  admits  a  Reynolds  and  a  Burke  to 
speak  with  him.  Loving  friends  are  there;  Lis- 
teners, even  Answerers :  the  fruit  of  his  long  labors 
lies  round  him  in  fair  legible  Writings,  of  Phi- 
losophy, Eloquence,  Morality,  Philology;  some  ex- 
cellent, all  worthy  and  genuine  Works;  for  which 
too,  a  deep,  earnest  murmur  of  thanks  reaches  him 
from  all  ends  of  his  Fatherland.  Nay,  there  are 
works  of  Goodness,  of  undying  Mercy,  which  even  he 
has  possessed  the  power  to  do :  '  What  I  gave  I  have ; 
what  I  spent  I  had!'  Early  friends  had  long  sunk 
into  the  grave ;  yet  in  his  soul  they  ever  lived,  fresh 
and  clear,  with  soft  pious  breathings  towards  them,  not 
without  a  still  hope  of  one  day  meeting  them  again  in 
purer  union.  Such  was  Johnson's  Life:  the  victorious 
Battle  of  a  free,  true  Man.  Finally  he  died  the  death 
of  the  free  and  true :  a  dark  cloud  of  Death,  solemn  and 
not  untinged  with  halos  of  immortal  Hope,  '  took  him 
away,'  and  our  eyes  could  no  longer  behold  him ;  but 
can  still  behold  the  trace  and  impress  of  his  courageous 


176        SELECTIONS    FROM    CARLYLE'S    ESSAY 

honest  spirit,  deep-legible  in  the  World's   Business, 
wheresoever  he  walked  and  was. 


To  estimate  the  quantity  of  Work  that  Johnson 
performed,  how  much  poorer  the  World  were  had 
Works  and  it  wanted  him,  can,  as  in  all  such  cases, 
life-  never  be  accurately  done ;  cannot,  till 

after  some  longer  space,  be  approximately  done.  All 
work  is  as  seed  sown ;  it  grows  and  spreads,  and  sows 
itself  anew,  and  so,  in  endless  palingenesia,  lives  and 
works.  To  Johnson's  Writings,  good  and  solid  and 
still  profitable  as  they  are,  we  have  already  rated  his 
Life  and  Conversation  as  superior.  By  the  one  and 
by  the  other,  who  shall  compute  what  effects  have 
been  produced,  and  are  still,  and  into  deep  Time,  pro- 
ducing ? 

If  we  ask  now,  by  what  endowment  it  mainly  was 
that  Johnson  realized  such  a  Life  for'  himself  and 
others ;  what  quality  of  character  the  main  phenomena 
of  his  Life  may  be  most  naturally  deduced  from,  and 
his  other  qualities  most  naturally  subordi- 
nated to,  in  our  conception  of  him,  perhaps 
the  answer  were :  The  quality  of  Courage,  of  Valor ; 
that  Johnson  was  a  Brave  Man.  , 


ON   BOSWELL'S   LIFE    OF   JOHNSON  177 

Johnson,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  as  Man  of 
Letters,  was  one  of  such ;  and,  in  good  truth,  '  the 
bravest  of  the  brave.'  What  mortal  could  have  more 
to  war  with  ?  Yet,  as  we  saw,  he  yielded  not,  faltered 
not;  he  fought,  and  even,  such  was  his  blessedness, 
prevailed.  Whoso  will  understand  what  it  is  to  have 
a  man's  heart  may  find  that,  since  the  time  of  John 
Milton,  no  braver  heart  had  beat  in  any  English  bosom 
than  Samuel  Johnson  now  bore.  Observe  too  that  he 
never  called  himself  brave,  never  felt  himself  to  be  so ; 
the  more  completely  was  so.  No  Giant  Despair,  no  Gol- 
gotha Death-dance  or  Sorcerer's-Sabbath  of  'Literary 
Life  in  London,'  appals  this  pilgrim ;  he  works  resolutely 
for  deliverance;  in  still  defiance  steps  stoutly  along. 
The  thing  that  is  given  him  to  do,  he  can  make  himself 
do;  what  is  to  be  endured,  he  can  endure  in  silence. 


Closely  connected  with  this  quality  of  Valor,  partly 
as  springing  from  it,  partly  as  protected  by  it,  are  the 
more  recognizable  qualities  of  Truthfulness  in  word 
and  thought,  and  Honesty  in  action.  There  is  a  reci- 
procity of  influence  here:  for  as  the  realizing  of 
Truthfulness  and  Honesty  is  the  lifelight  and  great 
aim  of  Valor,  so  without  Valor  they  cannot,  in 


178        SELECTIONS    FROM    CARLYLE'S    ESSAY 

anywise,  be  realized.  Now,  in  spite  of  all  practical 
short-comings,  no  one  that  sees  into  the  signifi- 
Truthful-  cance  of  Johnson  will  say  that  his  prime 
ness.  object  was  not  Truth.  In  conversation 

doubtless  you  may  observe  him,  on  occasion,  fighting 
as  if  for  victory; — and  must  pardon  these  ebulliences 
of  a  careless  hour,  which  were  not  without  tempta- 
tion and  provocation.  Remark  likewise  two  things : 
that  such  prize-arguings  were  ever  on  merely  super- 
ficial debatable  questions;  and.  then  that  they  were 
argued  generally  by  the  fair  laws  of  battle  and  logic- 
fence,  by  one  cunning  in  that  same.  If  their  purpose 
was  excusable,  their  effect  was  harmless,  perhaps  bene- 
ficial :  that  of  taming  noisy  mediocrity,  and  showing  it 
another  side  of  a  debatable  matter :  to  see  both  sides 
of  which  was,  for  the  first  time,  to  see  the  Truth  of  it. 
In  his  Writings  themselves  are  errors  enough,  crabbed 
prepossessions  enough;  yet  these  also  of  a  quite  extra- 
neous and  accidental  nature,  nowhere  a  wilful  shutting 
of  the  eyes  to  the  Truth.  Nay,  is  there  not  everywhere 
a  heartfelt  discernment,  singular,  almost  admirable,  if 
we  consider  through  what  confused  conflicting  lights 
and  hallucinations  it  had  to  be  attained,  of  the  highest 
everlasting  Truth,  and  beginning  of  all  Truths :  this 
namely,  that  man  is  ever,  and  even  in  the  age  of  Wilkes 


O.V   BOS  WELL'S    LIFE    OF   JOHNSON  179 

and  "Whitefield,  a  Revelation  of  God  to  man ;  and  lives, 
moves,  and  has  his  being,  in  Truth  only ;  is  either  true, 
or,  in  strict  speech,  is  not  at  all? 

Quite  spotless,  on  the  other  hand,  is  Johnson's  love 
of  Truth,  if  we  look  at  it  as  expressed  in  Practice,  as 
what  we  have  named  Honesty  of  action.  '  Clear  your 
mind  of  Cant ; '  clear  it,  throw  Cant  utterly  away  :  such 
was  his  emphatic,  repeated  precept;  and  did  not  he 
himself  faithfully  conform  to  it?  The  Life  of  this 
man  has  been,  as  it  were,  turned  inside  out,  and  exam- 
ined with  microscopes  by  friend  and  foe;  yet  was 
there  no  Lie  found  in  him.  His  Doings  and  Writings 
are  not  shows  but  performances :  you  may  weigh  them 
in  the  balance,  and  they  will  stand  weight.  Not  a 
line,  not  a  sentence  is  dishonestly  done,  is  other  than 
it  pretends  to  be.  Alas !  and  he  wrote  not  out  of 
inwtard  inspiration,  but  to  earn  his  wages:  and  with 
that  grand  perennial  tide  of  '  popular  delusion '  flow- 
ing by ;  in  whose  waters  he  nevertheless  refused  to 
fish,  to  whose  rich  oyster-beds  the  dive  was  too  muddy 
for  him.  Observe,  again,  with  what  innate  hatred  of 
Cant,  he  takes  for  himself,  and  offers  to  others,  the 
lowest  possible  view  of  his  business,  which  he  fol- 
lowed with  such  nobleness.  Motive  for  writing  he 
had  none,  as  he  often  said,  but  money ;  and  yet  he 


180         SELECTIONS    FROM    CARLYLE'S    ESSAY 

wrote  so.  Into  the  region  of  Poetic  Art  he  indeed 
never  rose ;  there  was  no  ideal  without  him,  avowing 
itself  in  his  work  :  the  nobler  was  that  unavowed  ideal 
which  lay  within  him,  and  commanded,  saying,  Work 
out  thy  Artisanship  in  the  spirit  of  an  Artist !  They 
who  talk  loudest  about  the  dignity  of  Art,  and  fancy 
that  they  too  are  Artistic  guild-brethren,  and  of  the 
Celestials,  —  let  them  consider  well  what  manner  of 
man  this  was,  who  felt  himself  to  be  only  a  hired  day- 
laborer.  A  laborer  that  was  worthy  of  his  hire ;  that 
has  labored  not  as  an  eye-servant,  but  as  one  found 
faithful ! 


That  Mercy  can  dwell  only  with  Valor,  is  an  old 
sentiment  or  proposition ;  which  in  Johnson  again  re- 
Mercy  and  ceives  confirmation.  Few  men  on  record 
charity.  have  had  a  more  merciful,  tenderly  affec- 
tionate nature  than  old  Samuel.  He  was  called  the  Bear ; 
and  did  indeed  too  often  look,  and  roar,  like  one ;  being 
forced  to  it  in  his  own  defence :  yet  within  that  shaggy 
exterior  of  his  there  beat  a  heart  warm  as  a  mother's, 
soft  as  a  little  child's.  Nay,  generally  his  very  roar- 
ing was  but  the  anger  of  affection :  the  rage  of  a  Bear, 
if  you  will;  but  of  a  Bear  bereaved  of  her  whelps. 


ON   BOS  WELL'S   LIFE    OF   JOHNSON  181 

Touch  his  Religion,  glance  at  the  Church  of  England, 
or  the  Divine  Eight ;  and  he  was  upon  you !  These 
things  were  his  Symbols  of  all  that  was  good  and 
precious  for  men ;  his  very  Ark  of  the  Covenant : 
whoso  laid  hand  on  them  tore  asunder  his  heart  of 
hearts.  Not  out  of  hatred  to  the  opponent,  but  of  love 
to  the  thing  opposed,  did  Johnson  grow  cruel,  fiercely 
contradictory :  this  is  an  important  distinction ;  never 
to  be  forgotten  in  our  censure  of  his  conversational 
outrages.  But  observe  also  with  what  humanity,  what 
openness  of  love,  he  can  attach  himself  to  all  things : 
to  a  blind  old  woman,  to  a  Doctor  Levett,  to  a  cat 
'  Hodge.'  '  His  thoughts  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life 
were  frequently  employed  on  his  deceased  friends ;  he 
often  muttered  these  or  suchlike  sentences :  "  Poor 
man  !  and  then  he  died." '  How  he  patiently  converts 
his  poor  home  into  a  Lazaretto;  endures,  for  long  years, 
the  contradiction  of  the  miserable  and  unreasonable ; 
with  him  unconnected,  save  that  they  had  no  other  to 
yield  them  refuge !  Generous  old  man !  Worldly  pos- 
session he  had  little;  yet  of  this  he  gives  freely; 
from  his  own  hard-earned  shilling,  the  half-pence  for 
the  poor,  that  '  waited  his  coming  out,'  are  not  with- 
held: the  poor  'waited  the  coming  out'  of  one  not 
quite  so  poor  !  A  Sterne  can  write  sentimentalities  on 


182         SELECTIONS    FROM    CARLYLE'S    ESSAY 

Dead  Asses :  Johnson  has  a  rough  voice ;  but  he  finds 
the  wretched  Daughter  of  Vice  fallen  down  in  the 
streets;  carries  her  home  on  his  own  shoulders,  and 
like  a  good  Samaritan  gives  help  to  the  help-needing, 
worthy  or  unworthy.  Ought  not  Charity,  even  in 
that  sense,  to  cover  a  multitude  of  sins  ?  No  Peuny-a- 
week  Committee-Lady,  no  manager  of  Soup-Kitchens, 
dancer  at  Charity-Balls,  was  this  rugged,  stern-visaged 
man :  but  where,  in  all  England,  could  there  have  been 
found  another  soul  so  full  of  Pity,  a  hand  so  heaven- 
like  bounteous  as  his  ?  The  widow's  mite,  we  know, 
was  greater  than  all  the  other  gifts. 

Perhaps  it  is  this  divine  feeling  of  Affection, 
throughout  manifested,  that  principally  attracts  us 
towards  Johnson.  A  true  brother  of  men  is  he ;  and 
filial  lover  of  the  Earth ;  who,  with  little  bright  spots 
of  Attachment,  '  where  lives  and  works  some  loved 
one,'  has  beautified  '  this  rough  solitary  Earth  into  a 
peopled  garden.'  Lichfield,  with  its  mostly  dull  and 
limited  inhabitants,  is,  to  the  last,  one  of  the  sunny 
islets  for  him :  Salve,  mayna  parens !  Or  read  those 
Letters  on  his  Mother's  death :  what  a  genuine 
solemn  grief  and  pity  lies  recorded  there;  a  looking 
back  into  the  Past,  unspeakably  mournful,  unspeak- 
ably tender. 


ON   £08 WELL'S   LIFE    OF   JOHNSON  183 

That  this  so  keen-loving,  soft-trembling  Affection- 
ateness,  the  inmost  essence  of  his  being,  must  have 
looked  forth,  in  one  form  or  another, 
through  Johnson's  whole  character,  prac- 
tical and  intellectual,  modifying  both,  is  not  to  be 
doubted.  Yet  through  what  singular  distortions  and 
superstitions,  moping  melancholies,  blind  habits,  whims 
about  '  entering  with  the  right  foot/  and  '  touching 
every  post  as  he  walked  along ; '  and  all  the  other  mad 
chaotic  lumber  of  a  brain  that,  with  sun-clear  intellect, 
hovered  forever  on  the  verge  of  insanity,  —  must  that 
same  inmost  essence  have  looked  forth  ;  unrecogniz- 
able to  all  but  the  most  observant !  Accordingly  ifc 
was  not  recognized;  Johnson  passed  not  for  a  fine 
nature,  but  for  a  dull,  almost  brutal  one.  Might  not, 
for  example,  the  first-fruit  of  such  a  Lovingness, 
coupled  with  his  quick  Insight,  have  been  expected  to 
be  a  peculiarly  courteous  demeanor  as  man  among 
men?  In  Johnson's  'Politeness,'  which  he  often,  to 
the  wonder  of  some,  asserted  to  be  great,  there  was 
indeed  somewhat  that  needed  explanation.  Neverthe- 
less, if  he  insisted  always  on  handing  lady -visitors  to 
their  carriage  ;  though  with  the  certainty  of  collecting 
a  mob  of  gazers  in  Fleet  Street,  —  as  might  well  be, 
the  beau  having  on,  by  way  of  court-dress,  'his  rusty 


184         SELECTIONS    FROM    CARLYLE'S    ESSAY 

brown  morning  suit,  a  pair  of  old  shoes  for  slippers, 
a  little  shriveled  wig  sticking  on  the  top  of  his  head, 
and  the  sleeves  of  his  shirt  and  the  knees  of  his 
breeches  hanging  loose : '  —  in  all  this  we  can  see  the 
spirit  of  true  Politeness,  only  shining  through  a  strange 
medium.  Thus  again,  in  his  apartments,  at  one  time, 
there  were  unfortunately  no  chairs.  *  A  gentleman 
who  frequently  visited  him  whilst  writing  his  Idlers, 
constantly  found  him  at  his  desk,  sitting  on  one  with 
three  legs;  and  on  rising  from  it,  he  remarked  that 
Johnson  never  forgot  its  defect;  but  would  either 
hold  it  in  his  hand,  or  place  it  with  great  composure 
against  some  support;  taking  no  notice  of  its  imper- 
fection to  his  visitor,'  —  who  meanwhile,  we  suppose, 
sat  upon  folios,  or  in  the  sartorial  fashion.  'It  was 
remarkable  in  Johnson,'  continues  Miss  Reynolds 
(Renny  dear),  'that  no  external  circumstances  ever 
prompted  him  to  make  any  apology,  or  to  seem  even 
sensible  of  their  existence.  Whether  this  was  the 
effect  of  philosophic  pride,  or  of  some  partial  notion 
of  his  respecting  high-breeding,  is  doubtful.'  That  it 
was,  for  one  thing,  the  effect  of  genuine  Politeness,  is 
nowise  doubtful.  Not  of  the  Pharisaical  Brummellean 
Politeness,  which  would  suffer  crucifixion  rather  than 
ask  twice  for  soup :  but  the  noble  universal  Politeness 


ON   BOS  WELL'S    LIFE    OF   JOHNSON  185 

of  a  man  that  knows  the  dignity  of  men,  and  feels  his 
own ;  such  as  may  be  seen  in  the  patriarchal  bearing 
of  an  Indian  Sachem ;  such  as  Johnson  himself  ex- 
hibited, when  a  sudden  chance  brought  him  into  dia- 
logue with  his  King.  To  us,  -with  our  view  of  the 
man,  it  nowise  appears  strange  that  he  should  have 
boasted  himself  cunning  in  the  laws  of  Politeness ; 
nor,  '  stranger  still,'  habitually  attentive  to  practise 
them. 


More  legibly  is  this  influence  of  the  Loving  heart 
to  be  traced  in  his  intellectual  character.  What,  in- 
deed, is  the  beginning  of  intellect,  the  first 
inducement  to  the  exercise  thereof,  but 
attraction  towards  somewhat,  affection  for  it  ?  Thus 
too  who  ever  saw  or  will  see  any  true  talent,  not  to 
speak  of  genius,  the  foundation  of  which  is  not  good- 
ness, love  ?  From  Johnson's  strength  of  Affection, 
we  deduce  many  of  his  intellectual  peculiarities ;  espe- 
cially that  threatening  array  of  perversions,  known 
under  the  name  of  '  Johnson's  Prejudices.'  Looking 
well  into  the  root  from  which  these  sprang,  we  have 
long  ceased  to  view  them  with  hostility,  can  pardon 
and  reverently  pity  them.  Consider  with  what  force 


186         SELECTIONS    FROM    CARLYLE'S    ESSAY 

early-imbibed  opinions  must  have  clung  to  a  soul  of 
this  Affection.  Those  evil-famed  Prejudices  of  his, 
that  Jacobitism,  Church-of-Englandism,  hatred  of  the 
Scotch,  belief  in  Witches,  and  suchlike,  what  were 
they  but  the  ordinary  beliefs  of  well-doing,  well- 
ineaning  provincial  Englishmen  in  that  day  ?  First 
gathered  by  his  Father's  hearth,  round  the  kind 
*  country  fires'  of  native  Staffordshire,  they  grew 
with  his  growth  and  strengthened  with  his  strength ; 
they  were  hallowed  by  fondest  sacred  recollections; 
to  part  with  them  was  parting  with  his  heart's  blood. 
If  the  man  who  has  no  strength  of  Affection,  strength 
of  Belief,  have  no  strength  of  Prejudice,  let  him  thank 
Heaven  for  it,  but  to  himself  take  small  thanks. 

Melancholy  it  was,  indeed,  that  the  noble  Johnson 
could  not  work  himself  loose  from  these  adhesions; 
that  he  could  only  purify  them,  and  wear  them  with 
some  nobleness.  Yet  let  us  understand  how  they 
grew  out  from  the  very  centre  of  his  being :  nay, 
moreover,  how  they  came  to  cohere  in  him  with  what 
formed  the  business  and  worth  of  his  Life,  the  sum  of 
his  whole  Spiritual  Endeavor.  For  it  is  on  the  same 
ground  that  he  became  throughout  an  Edifier  and  Re- 
pairer, not,  as  the  others  of  his  make  were,  a  Puller- 
down  ;  that  in  an  age  of  universal  Scepticism,  England 


ON   SOS  WELL'S   LIFE    OF   JOHXSOX  187 

was  still  to  produce  its  Believer.  Mark  too  his  candor 
even  here ;  while  a  Dr.  Adams,  with  placid  surprise, 
asks,  "  Have  we  not  evidence  enough  of  the  soul's  im- 
mortality ?  "  Johnson  answers,  "  I  wish  for  more." 

But  the  truth  is,  in  Prejudice ;  as  in  all  things, 
Johnson  was  the  product  9f  England;  one  of  those 
'  good  yeomen  whose  limbs  were  made  in  England : ' 
alas,  the  last  of  such  Invincibles,  their  day  being  now 
done !  His  culture  is  wholly  English ;  that  not  of  a 
Thinker  but  of  a  '  Scholar : '  his  interests  are  wholly 
English ;  he  sees  and  knows  nothing  but  England ;  he 
is  the  John  Bull  of  Spiritual  Europe :  let  him  live, 
love  him,  as  he  was  and  could  not  but  be ! 


APPENDIX   B 

JOHNSON   AS  A  MORALIST 

Extracts  from,  Leslie  Stephen's  HISTORY  OF  ENGLISH 
THOUGHT  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY,  Chapter 
XII. 

Johnson  escaped  from  the  hell  of  Swift's  passion  by 
virtue  of  that  pathetic  tenderness  of  nature  which 
lay  beneath  his  rugged  outside.  If  Swift  excites  a 
strange  mixture  of  repulsion  and  pity,  no  one  can 
know  Johnson  without  loving  him.  And  what  was 
Johnson's  special  message  to  the  world?  He  has 
given  it  most  completely  in  Rasselas.  ...  A  disciple 
of  Johnson  learns  the  futility  of  enquiring  into  the 
ultimate  purposes  of  the  Creator;  but  he  would 
acquiesce  in  the  accepted  creed.  It  is  as  good  as  any 
other,  considered  as  a  philosophy,  and  much  better 
considered  as  supplying  motives  for  the  conduct  of 
life.  Johnson's  fame  amongst  his  contemporaries  was 

188 


JOHNSON   AS    A    MORALIST  189 

that  of  a  great  moralist;    and  the  name  represents 
what  was  most  significant  in  his  teaching. 

He  was  as  good  a  moralist  as  a  man  can  be  who 
regards  the  ultimate  foundations  of  morality  as  placed 
beyond  the  reach  of  speculation.  "  We  know  we  are 
free,  and  there's  an  end  on't,"  is  his  answer  to  the 
great  metaphysical  difficiilty.  He  "  refutes  "  Berkeley 
by  kicking  a  stone.  He  thinks  that  Hume  is  a  mere 
trifler,  who  has  taken  to  "  milking  the  bull "  by  way 
of  variety.  He  laughs  effectually  at  Soame  Jenyns's 
explanation  of  the  origin  of  evil ;  but  leaves  the 
question  as  practically  insoluble,  without  troubling 
himself  as  to  why  it  is  insoluble,  or  what  consequences 
may  follow  from  its  insolubility.  Speculation,  in 
short,  though  he  passed  for  a  philosopher,  was  simply 
abhorrent  to  him.  He  passes  by  on  the  other  side, 
and  leaves  such  puzzles  for  triflers.  He  has  made  up 
his  mind  once  for  all  that  religion  is  wanted,  and  that 
the  best  plan  is  to  accept  the  established  creed.  And 
thus  we  have  the  apparent  paradox  that,  whilst  no 
man  sets  a  higher  value  upon  truthfulness  in  all  the 
ordinary  affairs  of  life  than  Johnson,  no  man  could 
care  less  for  the  foundations  of  speculative  truth. 
His  gaze  was  not  directed  to  that  side.  Judging  in 
all  cases  rather  by  intuition  than  by  logical  processes, 


190  JOHNSON   AS    A    MORALIST 

he  takes  for  granted  the  religious  theories  which  fall 
in  sufficiently  with  his  moral  convictions.  To  all 
speculation  which  may  tend  to  loosen  the  fixity  of 
the  social  order  he  is  deaf  or  contemptuously  averse. 
The  old  insidious  Deism  seems  to  him  to  be  mere 
trash ;  and  he  would  cure  the  openly  aggressive  Deism 
of  Rousseau  by  sending  its  author  to  the  plantations. 
Indifference  to  speculation  generates  a  hearty  con- 
tempt for  all  theories.  He  has  too  firm  a  grasp  of 
facts  to  care  for  the  dreams  of  fanciful  Utopians  ;  his 
emotions  are  too  massive  and  rigid  to  be  easily  excited 
by  enthusiasts.  He  ridicules  the  prevailing- cry  against 
corruption.  The  world  is  bad  enough,  in  all  con- 
science, but  it  will  do  no  good  to  exaggerate  or  to 
whine.  He  has  no  sympathy  with  believers  in  the 
speedy  advent  of  a  millennium.  The  evils  under  which 
creation  groans  have  their  causes  in  a  region  far  beyond 
the  powers  of  constitution-mongers  and  political  agi- 
tators. 

"  How  small  of  all  that  human  hearts  endure 
That  part  which  laws  or  kings  can  cause  or  cure  !  " 

These  words  sum  up  his  political  theory.  Subordina- 
tion is  the  first  necessity  of  man,  whether  in  politics 
or  religion.  To  what  particular  form  of  creed  or  con- 


JOHNSON  AS    A    MORALIST  191 

stitution  men  are  to  submit  is  a  matter  of  secondary 
importance.  No  mere  shifting  of  the  superficial  ar- 
rangements of  society  will  seriously  affect  the  condi- 
tion of  mankind.  Starvation,  poverty,  and  disease 
are  evils  beyond  the  reach  of  a  Wilkes  or  a  Rousseau. 
Stick  to  the  facts,  and  laugh  at  fine  phrases.  Clear 
your  mind  of  cant.  Work  and  don't  whine.  Hold 
fast  by  established  order,  and  resist  anarchy  as  you 
would  resist  the  devil.  That  is  the  pith  of  Johnson's 
answer  to  the  vague  declamations  symptomatic  of  the 
growing  unrest  of  European  society.  All  such  queru- 
lous complaints  were  classed  by  him  with  the  fancies 
of  a  fine  lady  who  has  broken  her  china,  or  a  fop  who 
has  spoilt  his  fine  clothes  by  a  slip  in  the  kennel.  He 
underestimated  the  significance  of  the  symptoms, 
because  he  never  appreciated  the  true  meaning  of 
Hume  or  Voltaire.  But  the  stubborn  adherence  of 
Johnson,  and  such  men  as  Johnson,  to  solid  fact,  and 
their  unreasonable  contempt  for  philosophy,  goes  far 
to  explain  how  it  came  to  pass  that  England  avoided 
the  catastrophe  of  a  revolution.  The  morality  is  not 
the  highest,  because  it  implies  an  almost  wilful  blind- 
ness to  the  significance  of  the  contemporary  thought, 
but  appropriate  to  the  time,  for  it  expresses  the 
resolute  determination  of  the  dogged  English  mind 


192  JOHNSON   AS   A    MORALIST 

not  to  loosen  its  grasp  on  solid  fact  in  pursuit  of 
dreams;  and  thoroughly  masculine,  for  it  expresses 
the  determination  to  see  the  world  as  it  is,  and  to 
reject  with  equal  decision  the  optimism  of  shallow 
speculation,  and  the  morbid  pessimism  of  such  misan- 
thropists as  Swift. 


INDEX  TO   NOTES 


Absolving   felons    and    letting 

aside  wills,  73. 
Addison,  92. 
^Eschylus,  107. 
Alamode  beef,  78. 
A  music  master  from   Brescia, 

121. 
An  old  lady    named   Williams, 

115. 

Aristotle,  101. 
As  poor  as  himself,  75. 
A  suitor  who  might  have  been 

her  son,  76. 

At  either  university,  72. 
Ate  like  a  cormorant,  89. 
Attic  poetry  and  eloquence,  70. 
Augustan,  70. 

Bachelor  of  Arts,  73. 
Bath,  115. 
Beaumont,  107. 
Beggar's  Opera,  the,  78. 
Ben,  107. 

Benefit  nights,  92. 
Bennet  Langton,  109. 
Bentiucks,  102. 


Bentley,  119. 

Berwickshire,  117. 

Blefuscu,  80. 

Blues    of    the    Roman    circus 

against  the  Greens,  the,  81. 
Boswell,  James,  110. 
Boyse,  86. 
Brighton,  115. 
Bruce's  Travels,  99. 
Burke,  100. 
Bute,  Lord,  102. 

Cambridge,  72. 
Campbells,  119. 
Capulets  and  Montagues,  81. 
Cavendishes,  102. 
Celtic  region,  the,  117. 
Charles  II.,  83. 
Chesterfield,  Earl  of,  88. 
Christ  Church  College,  72. 
Churchill,  105. 
Churchman,  69. 
Gibber,  120. 
Cicero,  91. 

City    was  becoming   mutinous, 
The,  102. 


193 


194 


INDEX 


Clarendon,  84. 

Club,  a,  108. 

Cock  Lane,  103. 

Congreve,  123. 

Covent  Garden,  88. 

Cowley,  120. 

Critical  Review,  the,  99. 

David  Garrick,  77. 
Decker,  107. 
Delphi,  101. 
Demosthenes,  91. 
Denham,  123. 
Dictator,  95. 
Dissenters,  etc.,  84. 
Doctor's  degree,  107. 
Dodington,  93. 
Drury  Lane,  78. 
Drury  Lane  Theatre,  92. 
Dryden,  121. 

East  Lothian,  117. 
Ephesian  Matron,  the,  122. 
Euripides,  107. 
Excise,  the,  84. 

Falkland,  83. 
Fielding,  78. 
Fingal,  118. 
Fleet  Street,  115. 
Fletcher,  107. 
Ford,  107. 
Frances  Burney,  123. 


Garrick,  77. 

Gay,  78,  123. 

Gentleman  commoner,  72. 

Gentleman's  Magazine,  the,  80. 

George  the  Third's  policy,  102. 

Gibbon,  109. 

Goldsmith,  108. 

Grammar  schools,  75. 

Gray,  121. 

Great  Rebellion,  the,  84. 

Great  restorers  of  learning,  the, 

71. 

Grub  Street,  88. 
Gunnings,  the,  94. 

Hampden,  83. 
Hannibal,  90. 
Happy  Valley,  the,  99. 
Hardwicke,  Lord,  81. 
Harleian  Library,  80. 
Hartley,  93. 
Hector,  101. 
Hendersons,  119. 
Her  hand  was  applied  in  vain,  70. 
Her  opinion  of  his  writings,  95. 
Hickrad,  81. 
Hoole.  86. 
Horace,  85. 
Home  Tooke,  97. 
Humble    stage     in    Goodman's 
Fields,  a,  92. 

In  a  letter,  96. 


INDEX 


195 


Indexraakers,  86. 
Inhospitable  door,  89. 
Irene,  77. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  name,  etc., 
107. 

Jacobite,  69. 

James  II.,  83. 

Jenyns,  98. 

Johnson  as  "ringleader,"  73. 

Johnson  reiterated  the  charge  of 

forgery,  118. 

Johnson's  abilities  and  acquire- 
ments, 73. 

Charles,  90. 

ferocity,  79. 

homage  to  Chesterfield,  88. 

humour,  74. 

kindness  and  consideration,  79. 

letter  to  Lord  Chesterfield,  96. 

letter  to  Macpherson,  118. 

"  Literary  Club,"  108. 

London,  85. 

marriage    (according    to    Car- 
lyle),  76. 

prospectus  to  his  Dictionary, 
89. 

reasons  for  not  writing,  103. 

religion,  74. 

tribute  to  his  wife,  94. 
Johnson  was  a  water  drinker, 

114. 
Jones,  109. 


Julio  Romano,  101. 
Junius  and  Skinner,  98. 
Juvenal,  85. 

Kenricks,  119. 

Lady  Mary,  95. 

Language  so  coarse,  101. 

Latin  book  about  Abyssinia,  a,  75. 

Laud,  83. 

Lennox,  Mrs.,  100. 

Lepels,  75. 

Lichfield,  69. 

Lord  Privy  Seal,  the,  101. 

MacNicols,  119. 

Macpherson,  118. 

Macrobius,  72. 

Malone,  121. 

Mangled  with  the  shears,  84. 

Mansfield,  Lord,  117. 

Marlow,  .107. 

Massinger,  107. 

Maxime,  si  tu  vis,  cupio  con- 
tendere  tecum,  119. 

Mildendo,  80. 

Miseries  of  a  literary  life,  the,  91. 

Miss  Lydia  Languish,  99. 

Mitre  Tavern,  the,  116. 

Monthly  Review,  the,  95. 

Mrs.  Johnson's  fortune,  76. 

Mrs.  Johnson's  personal  appear- 
ance, 77. 


196 


INDEX 


Nardac,  80. 
Newton,  99. 

Orrery,  120. 
Osborne,  79. 
Oxford,  72. 

Pamphleteers,  86. 

Pembroke  College,  72. 

Petrarch's  works,  71. 

Poet   who   made    Hector   quote 

Aristotle,  the,  101. 
Politian,  75. 
Polonius,  105. 
Pomposo,  105 
Pope,  73. 
Porter's  knot,  78. 
Pretty  creature,  77. 
Prince  Frederic,  93. 
Printer's  devil  or  the   sheriff's 

officer,  the,  102. 
Prior,  123. 
Presbyterian  polity  and  ritual, 

117. 

Psalmanazar,  George,  87. 
Public  Schools  of  England,  71. 
Pulteney,  William,  81. 
Purity  of  the  English  tongue, 

the,  94. 

Queensberrys,  75. 
Rasselas,  98. 


Restoration,  the,  120. 
Reynolds,  109. 
Richardson,  93. 
Robertson,  121. 
Roundheads,.  84. 
Royal  Academy,  the,  108. 
Royal  touch,  the,  70. 
Rude  even  to  ferocity,  79. 

Sacheverell,  81. 

Savage,  Richard,  87. 

Scarcely  a    Teutonic  language, 

97. 

Secretary  of  state,  77. 
Sejanus,  90. 
Senate  of  Lilliput,  80. 
Services  of  no  very  honourable 

kind  to  Pope,  121. 
Sheridan,  120. 
Sheridan,  Mrs.,  101. 
Ship  money,  83. 
Sir  Roger,  etc.,  94. 
Skinner,  98. 
Societies  where  he  was  treated 

with  courtesy  and  kindness, 

79. 

Somersets,  102. 
Sophocles,  107. 
Southwark,  115. 
Sovereigns  in  possession,  69. 
Spnigs,  80. 

Squire  Bluster,  etc.,  94. 
Staffordshire,  69. 


INDEX 


197 


Steels,  92. 

Streatham  Common,  115. 
Subterranean  ordinaries,  78. 
Swift,  120. 

Tatler,  the,  92. 

Taxation  no  Tyranny,  119. 

The  attempt  failed,  85. 

The  feeling  described,  etc.,  122. 

Thomson,  77. 

Thrales,  the,  115. 

Titty,  his,  75. 

Tom  Tempest,  82. 

Too  dim  to  cheer  him,  74. 

Topham  Beauclerk,  109. 

To  torment  him  O7id  to  live  upon 

him,  116. 
Trunk  maker  and    the   pastry 

cook,  the,  108. 
Two  pictures,  the,  122. 

Usher  of  a  grammar  school,  75. 


Versification  of  Irene,  the,  92. 
Virgilian,  73. 

Warburton,  88. 

Webster,  107. 

Which  she  accepted  with  but 
little  gratitude,  94. 

Whig  policy  in  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. Dissenters,  etc.,  84. 

Whitfield,  114. 

Wilhelm  Meister,  106. 

Wilkes,  113. 

Williams,  Mrs.,  115. 

Wilson,  120. 

Windham,123. 

Wits  of  Button,  the,  120. 

Wolsey,  89. 

Worcestershire,  69. 

Wyndhams,  102. 

Young,  93. 


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Addison's  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley.  Edited  by  ZELMA  GRAY,  East  Side 
High  School,  Saginaw,  Mich. 

Andersen's  Fairy  Tales.  Translated  from  the  Danish  by  CAROLINE 
PEACHEY  and  Dr.  H.  W.  DULCKEN.  With  biographical  notes  and 
introduction  by  SARAH  C.  BROOKS,  Training  School,  Baltimore,  Md. 

Arabian  Nights.    Edited  by  CLIFTON  JOHNSON. 

Arnold's  Sohrab  and  Rustum  and  other  Poems.  Edited  by  JUSTUS  COL- 
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Bacon's  Essays.  Edited  by  Professor  GEORGE  HERBERT  CLARKE, 
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Blackmore's  Lorna  Doone.  Edited  by  ALBERT  L.  BARBOUR,  Superin- 
tendent of  Schools,  Natick,  Mass. 

Browning's  Shorter  Poems.  Edited  by  FRANKLIN  T.  BAKER,  Teachers 
College,  New  York  City. 

Mrs.  Browning's  Poems  (Selections  from).  Edited  by  HELOISE  E. 
HERSHEY. 

Bryant's  Thanatopsis,  Sella,  and  other  Poems.  Edited  by  J.  H.  CASTLE- 
MAN,  Michigan  Military  Academy,  Orchard  Lake,  Mich. 

Bunyan's  The  Pilgrim's  Progress,  Part  I.  Edited  by  Professor  HUGH 
MOFFATT,  Central  High  School,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Burke's  Speech  on  Conciliation.  Edited  by  S.  C.  NEWSOM,  Manual 
Training  High  School,  Indianapolis,  Ind. 

Byron's  Childe  Harold.  Edited  by  A.  J.  GEORGE,  High  School,  Newton, 
Mass. 

Byron's  Shorter  Poems.  Edited  by  RALPH  HARTT  BOWLES,  Instructor 
in  English  in  The  Phillips  Exeter  Academy,  Exeter,  N.H. 

Carlyle's  Essay  on  Burns,  with  Selections.  Edited  by  WILLARD  C. 
GORE,  Armour  Institute,  Chicago,  111. 

Carlyle's  Heroes  and  Hero  Worship.  Edited  by  Mrs.  ANNIE  RUSSELL 
MARBLE. 

Carroll's  Alice  in  Wonderland.     Edited  by  CHARLES  A.  McMURRY. 

Chaucer's  Prologue  to  the  Book  of  the  Tales  of  Canterbury,  the  Knight's 
Tale,  and  the  Nun's  Priest's  Tale.  Edited  by  ANDREW  INGRAHAM, 
Late  Headmaster  of  the  Swain  Free  School,  New  Bedford,  Mass. 

Church's  The  Story  of  the  Iliad. 

Church's  The  Story  of  the  Odyssey. 

Coleridge's  The  Ancient  Mariner.  Edited  by  T.  F.  HUNTINGTON,  Leland 
Stanford  Junior  University. 

Cooper's  Last  of  the  Mohicans.  Edited  by  W.  K.  WiCKES,  Principal  of 
the  High  School,  Syracuse,  N.Y. 

Cooper's  The  Deerslayer. 


Pocket  Series  of  English  Classics  —  CONTINTTED 


Defoe's  Robinson  Crusoe.    Edited  by  CLIFTON  JOHNSON. 

De  Quincey's  Confessions  of  an  English  Opium-Eater.  Edited  by 
ARTHUR  BEATTY,  University  of  Wisconsin. 

De  Quincey's  Joan  of  Arc  and  The  English  Mail-Coach.  Edited  by 
CAROL  M.  NEWMAN,  Virginia  Polytechnic  Institute,  Blacksburg, 
Va. 

Dickens's  A  Christmas  Carol  and  The  Cricket  on  the  Hearth.  Edited  by 
JAMES  M.  SAWIN,  with  the  collaboration  of  IDA  M.  THOMAS. 

Dickens's  A  Tale  of  Two  Cities.  Edited  by  H.  G.  BUEHLER,  Hotchkiss 
School,  Lakeville,  Conn. 

Dryden's  Palamon  and  Arcite.  Edited  by  PERCIVAL  CHUBB,  Vice-Prin- 
cipal Ethical  Culture  Schools,  New  York  City. 

Early  American  Orations,  1760-1824.  Edited  by  LOUIE  R.  HELLER,  In- 
structor in  English  in  the  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School,  New  York  City. 

Edwards's  (Jonathan)  Sermons  (Selections).  Edited  by  H.  N.  GAR- 
DINER, Professor  of  Philosophy,  Smith  College. 

Emerson's  Essays  (Selected).  Edited  by  EUGENE  D.  HOLMES,  High 
School,  Albany,  N.Y. 

Emerson's  Representative  Men.  Edited  by  PHILO  MELVYN  BUCK,  Jr., 
William  McKinley  High  School,  St.  Louis,  Mo. 

Epoch-making  Papers  in  United  States  History.  Edited  by  M.  S.  BROWN, 
New  York  University. 

Franklin's  Autobiography. 

Mrs.  Gaskell's  Cranford.  Edited  by  Professor  MARTIN  W.  SAMPSON, 
Indiana  University. 

George  Eliot's  Silas  Marner.  Edited  by  E.  L.  GULICK,  Lawrenceville 
School,  Lawrenceville,  N.J. 

Goldsmith's  The  Deserted  Village  and  The  Traveller.  Edited  by  ROBERT 
N.  WHITEFORD,  High  School,  Peoria,  111. 

Goldsmith's  Vicar  of  Wakefield.  Edited  by  H.  W.  BoYNTON,  Phillips 
Academy,  Andover,  Mass. 

Grimm's  Fairy  Tales.  Edited  by  JAMES  H.  FASSETT,  Superintendent  of 
Schools,  Nashua,  N.H. 

Hawthorne's  Grandfather's  Chair.  Edited  by  H.  H.  KlNGSLEY,  Superin- 
tendent of  Schools,  Evanston,  111. 

Hawthorne's  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables.  Edited  by  CLYDE  FURST. 
Secretary  of  Teachers  College,  Columbia  University. 

Hawthornc'd  The  Wonder-Book.  Edited  by  L.  E.  WOLFE,  Superintendent 
of  Schools  c^n  Antonio,  Texas. 

Hawthorn?'.,  f  wice-Told  Tales.  Edited  by  R.  C.  G-ASTON,  Richmond  Hifl 
High  School,  Borough  of  Queens,  New  York  City. 

Jbmer's  Iliad.    Translated  by  LANG,  LEAF,  and  MYERS. 

Homer's  Odyssey.    Translated  by  BUTCHER  and  LANG. 

Irving's  Alhambra  Edited  by  ALFRED  M.  HITCHCOCK,  Public  High 
School,  Hartford,  Conn. 

Irving's  Life  of  Goldsmith.  Edited  by  GILBERT  SYKES  BLAKELY, 
Teacher  of  English  in  the  Morris  High  School,  New  York  City. 

Irving's  Sketch  Book. 

Keary's  Heroes  of  Asgard.  Edited  by  CHARLES  H.  MORSE,  Superintend- 
ent of  Schools,  Medford,  Mass. 


Pocket  Series  of  English  Classics  —  CONTINUED 


Kingsley's  The  Heroes:  Greek  Fairy  Tales.  Edited  by  CHARLES  A. 
McMURRY,  Ph.D. 

Lamb's  Essays  of  Elia.  Edited  by  HELEN  J.  ROBINS,  Miss  Baldwin's 
School,  Bryn  Mawr,  Pa. 

Longfellow's  Courtship  of  Miles  Standish.    Edited  by  HOMER  P.  LEWIS. 

Longfellow's  Courtship  of  Miles  Standish.  Edited  by  W.  D.  HOWE, 
Butler  College,  Indianapolis,  Ind. 

Longfellow's  Evangeline.  Edited  by  LEWIS  B.  SEMPLE,  Commercial 
High  School,  Brooklyn,  N.Y. 

Longfellow's  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn.  Edited  by  J.  H.  CASTLEMAN, 
William  McKinley  High  School,  St.  Louis,  Mo. 

Longfellow's  The  Song  of  Hiawatha.  Edited  by  ELIZABETH  J.  FLEM- 
ING, Teachers'  Training  School,  Baltimore,  Md. 

Lowell's  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal.  Edited  by  HERBERT  E.  BATES,  Manual 
Training  High  School,  Brooklyn,  N.Y. 

Macaulay's  Essay  on  Addison.  Edited  by  C.  W.  FRENCH,  Principal  of 
Hyde  Park  High  School,  Chicago,  111. 

Macaulay's  Essay  on  Clive.  Edited  by  J.  W.  PEARCE,  Assistant  Pro- 
fessor of  English  in  Tulane  University. 

Macaulay's  Essay  on  Johnson.  Edited  by  WILLIAM  SCHUYLER,  Assist- 
ant Principal  of  the  St.  Louis  High  School. 

Macaulay's  Essay  on  Milton.     Edited  by  C.  W.  FRENCH. 

Macaulay's  Essay  on  Warren  Hastings.  Edited  by  Mrs.  M.  J.  FRICK, 
Los  Angeles,  Cal. 

Macaulay's  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome,  and  other  Poems.  Edited  by  FRANK- 
LIN T.  BAKER,  Teachers  College,  Columbia  University. 

Memorable  Passages  from  the  Bible  (Authorized  Version).  Selected 
and  edited  by  FRED  NEWTON  SCOTT,  Professor  of  Rhetoric  in  the 
University  of  Michigan. 

Milton's  Comus,  Lycidas,  and  other  Poems.  Edited  by  ANDREW  J. 
GEORGE. 

Milton's  Paradise  Lost,  Books  I  and  n.  Edited  by  W.  I.  CRANE,  Steele 
High  School,  Dayton,  O. 

Old  English  Ballads.  Edited  by  WILLIAM  D.  ARMES,  of  the  University 
of  California. 

Out  of  the  Northland.     Edited  by  EMILIE  KIP  BAKER. 

Palgrave's  Golden  Treasury  of  Songs  and  Lyrics. 

Plutarch's  Lives  of  Cssar,  Brutus,  and  Antony.  Edited  by  MARTHA 
BRIER,  Teacher  of  English  in  the  Polytechnic  High  School,  Oak- 
land, Cal. 

Poe's  Poems.  Edited  by  CHARLES  W.  KENT,  Linden  Kent  Memorial 
School,  University  of  Virginia. 

Poe's  Prose  Tales  (Selections  from). 

Pope's  Homer's  Iliad.  Edited  by  ALBERT  SMYTH,  Head  Professor  of  Eng- 
lish Language  and  Literature,  Central  High  School,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Pope's  The  Rape  of  the  Lock.  Edited  by  ELIZABETH  M.  KING,  Louisi- 
ana Industrial  Institute,  Ruston,  La. 

Ruskin's  Sesame  and  Lilies  and  The  King  of  the  Golden  River.  Edited 
by  HERBERT  E.  BATES. 

Scott's  Ivanhoe.    Edited  by  ALFRED  M.  HITCHCOCK. 


Pocket  Series  of  English  Classics  —  CONTINUED 


Scott's  Lady  of  the  Lake.  Edited  by  ELIZABETH  A.  PACKARD,  Oak- 
land.  Cal. 

Scott's  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel.    Edited  by  RALPH  H.  BOWLES. 

Scott's  Marmion.  Edited  by  GEORGE  B.  AlTON,  State  Inspector  of  High 
Schools  for  Minnesota. 

Scott's  Quentin  Durward.  Edited  by  ARTHUR  LLEWELLYN  ENO,  In- 
structor in  the  University  of  Illinois. 

Scott's  The  Talisman.  Edited  by  FREDERICK  TKEUDLEY,  State  Normal 
College,  Ohio  University. 

Shakespeare's  As  You  Like  It.    Edited  by  CHARLES  ROBERT  GASTON. 

Shakespeare's  Hamlet.  Edited  by  L.  A.  SHERMAN,  Professor  of  English 
Literature  in  the  University  of  Nebraska. 

Shakespeare's  Henry  V.  Edited  by  RALPH  HARTT  BOWLES,  Phillips 
t,.xeter  Academy,  Exeter,  N.H. 

3hakespeare's  Julius  Caesar.  Edited  by  GEORGE  W.  HUFFORD  and 
Lois  G.  HUFFORD,  High  School,  Indianapolis,  Ind. 

Shakespeare's  Merchant  of  Venice.  Edited  by  CHARLOTTE  W.  UNDER- 
WOOD, Lewis  Institute,  Chicago,  111. 

Shakespeare's  Macbeth.     Edited  by  C.  W.  FRENCH. 

Shakespeare's  Twelfth  Night.  Edited  by  EDWARD  P.  MORTON,  Assist- 
ant Professor  of  English  in  the  University  of  Indiana. 

Shelley  and  Keats  (Selections  from).     Edited  by  S.  C.  NEWSOM. 

Southern  Poets  (Selections  from).  Edited  by  W.  L.  WEBER,  Professor 
of  English  Literature  in  Emory  College,  Oxford,  Ga. 

Spenser's  Faerie  Queene,  Book  I.  Edited  by  GEORGE  ARMSTRONG 
WAUCHOPE,  Professor  of  English  in  the  South  Carolina  College. 

Stevenson's  Treasure  Island.  Edited  by  H.  A.  VANCE,  Professor  of  Eng- 
lish in  the  University  of  Nashville. 

Swift's  Gulliver's  Travels.     Edited  by  CLIFTON  JOHNSON. 

Tennyson's  Idylls  of  the  King.  Ed'ited  by  W.  T.  VLYMEN,  Principal 
of  Eastern  District  High  School,  Brooklyn,  N.Y. 

Tennyson's  Shorter  Poems.  Edited  by  CHARLES  READ  NUTTEF,  In- 
structor in  English  at  Harvard  University ;  sometime  Master  in  Eng- 
lish at  Groton  School. 

Tennyson's  The  Princess.  Edited  by  WILSON  FARRAND,  Newark  Acad- 
emy, Newark,  N.J. 

Thackeray's  Henry  Esmond.  Edited  by  JOHN  BELL  HENNEMAN,  Uni- 
versity of  the  South,  Sewanee,  Tenn. 

Washington's  Farewell  Address,  and  Webster's  First  Bunker  Hill  Ora- 
tion. Edited  by  WILLIAM  T.  PECK,  Classical  High  School,  Provi- 
dence, R.I. 

John  Woolman's  Journal. 

Wordsworth's  Shorter  Poems.  Edited  by  EDWARD  FULTON,  Assistant 
Professor  of  Rhetoric  in  the  University  of  Illinois. 


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